Village Board — Minutes

VILLAGE BOARD MEETING – November 3, 2025, PAGE 1 The Friendship Village Board meeting was called to order followed by the Pledge of Allegiance by all present. President Jerry Sonnenberg called the meeting to order and roll call was taken. Present were Trustees Brad Oberbeck, Ernie Klicko, Nadine Ashworth , Melvin Waller, Bob Berry, Jason Pierce and President S onnenberg. Also present were Attorney Joseph Hasler, Treasurer Sandy Shawback and Clerk Rebecca Reuter. APPROVAL OF MINUTES MOTION by Berry, second by Pierce to approve October 6th, 2025, Village Board minutes, motion carried. TREASURER REPORT General Water Sewer September 1, 2025, Balance 107,777.34 317,372.70 43,737.87 September Receipts 180,699.51 8,132.19 4,369.07 September Disbursements 65,039.58 34,846.57 17,890.88 September 30, 2025, Balance 223,437.27 290,658.32 30,216.06 LGIP #1 TIF $1,077,895.06 – LGIP #9 ARPA $0. 45 – Capital Project Checking $34,165.25 - Building Fund $ 70,000.00 – Money Market $1,646.91 – CDBG Working Fund $13,857.48 - LGIP #6 Park/Beach $45,536.82 – Tax Checking $128,968.03 – TIF Checking $95.00 -Street Equipment Fund $ 43,416.50 – Court Order Proceeds $3,808.03 – Water LGIP #3 Special Redemption Fund $2 51,242.63 - LGIP #4 Water Replacement Fund $3 93,121.18 – LGIP #8 Water Debt Reserve Fund $7 9,702.86 – Sewer LGIP#2 Special Redemption Fund $ 106,470.48 - LGIP#5 Sewer Replacement Fund $56,133.01 – LGIP#7 Sewer Debt Reserve Fund $64,802.04 MOTION by Klicko, second by Oberbeck to approve treasurer report, motion carried. PAYING OF BILLS MOTION by Klicko, second by Oberbeck to approve November vouchers 27877 - 27929 in the amount of $196,448.60, motion carried. CITIZEN INPUT Rick Pease wanted to let everyone know what a fabulous job Public Works is doing in Friendship. He seen them cleaning the streets and taking leaves out of the gutter the other day. He’s never seen the park look any better. They are doing a terrific job around the Village. ROPORT FROM COUNTY REPRESENTATIVE RICK PEASE Rick Pease stated that next Tuesday will be a big board meeting for the budget. He doesn’t know if anyone ever reads the budget packet that gets posted, but in the packet there’s something called 2026 strategic goals, those are funding priorities that they base the budget on. There are 7 of them 1 is Economic Development – job creation, 2 is Natural Resources – clean water, 3 is Capital – safeguards our assets, 4 is Infrastructure – our roads, 5 is Community – attract families, 6 is Fiscal Stewardship – That’s basically the budget itself, and 7 is Other Stewardship – to hire qualified people. That is what their budget is based on. That is what they structure their budget on. A few things that he finds interesting are the equalized value in this county went up 15.9% and that is one of the highest in the state. The mill rate is going down 12.27%, that’s a good thing. New home construction went up 2.9%, because of that they could increase the budget $595,000. He recently went to Wisconsin County Association convention, and he took a class, and they were saying that we should look at the budget and make sure we’re fiscally sound. If you’ve noticed, there’s a lot of countries around us that are struggling this year trying to balance their budgets. We have our budget balanced right now. He’s sure there will be some motions on the floor on Tuesday that will switch some money around, but that’s just part of the process. He currently sits on the Economics involvement committee. It currently meets every 4 th Thursday of the month. We’ve never had anyone from the Village of Friendship attend it. They are trying to get the municipalities to attend it and just let everyone how what’s going on in their Village/Town/City. He would like someone to volunteer and come to the VILLAGE BOARD MEETING – November 3, 2025, PAGE 2 meeting . They are trying to get the City of Adams involved also. They have a spot on the agenda where we can come in and talk about what we have going on, he really thinks that would be great. Then we will learn what the committee is currently doing and what is going on in other parts of the county. They meet at 7:30-9:00 a.m. in the basement of the hospital. REVIEW PRELIMINARY 2026 BUDGET Sonnenberg stated that what we are trying to do is get the board to review and approve the preliminary budget so that we can set a date for the public hearing. He asked if anyone had any comments or concerns about it? MOTION by Klicko, second by Ashworth to approve the budget as presented, motion carried. SET DATE AND TIME OF PUBLIC HEARING ON 2026 BUDGET MOTION by Klicko, second by Oberbeck to set the Public Hearing for December 1st at 6:00 p.m. , motion carried. DISCUSSION & POSSIBLE ACTION ON CONSENSUAL SPECIAL ASSESSMENT AGREEMENT FOR 207 EAST LAKE STREET Attorney Hasler stated that as you know we razed and removed the structure at 207 East Lake Street. We have a special charge against the property of $29,600. The property owner would like to setup a payment arrangement between the Village and the owner, however the Village is not their bank. He did not think that was a particularly good agreement, so what he suggested was a consensual special assessment agreement between the Village and the property owner. It would basically provide that the property owner would pay off the amount of $5,920 a year for the next 5 years starting with the tax bill that will go out this December. This is one way of collecting the amount that is owed and getting the property owner the benefit of the doubt in terms of ability to pay. If the property owner doesn’t consent to this arrangement what the Village will do is simply put entire $29,600 bill on the 2025 tax bill as a special charge, and it will be due and payable in full with the 2025 taxes, payable no later than January 31st . He knows when we were in the height of doing of the raze and remove it come up about who actually owns the property, it was owned by Teresa Schneider, sometime after the whole process begin she conveyed it to Tire B Gon, LLC the member is Bret A Schneider who shares the same last name but is not related to Teresa. It really doesn’t make any difference who owns it as long as we have 1st and paramount lean on the property which we have. He’s comfortable that we are either going to get an agreed upon consensual special assessment agreement with the property owner or we’re simply going to levy it as a special charge. MOTION by Klicko, second by Berry to approve the consensual special assessment agreement, ask the property owner to sign it giving him a payment plan with the understanding that if he doesn’t pay it then it will get accelerated, motion carried. PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE REPORT BY CHAIRMAN BERRY - DISCUSSION & POSSIBLE ACTION ON: Peter Downs from 309 Hillwood Lane came to the meeting. He had some complaints about water running off the road and down onto his property. Sonnenberg and Berry went to look at it a few days ago , and there isn’t anything that we can really do about it. When it rains hard the water runs off the road, underneath his stares down to the lake. If he wanted to do anything he would have to funnel the water into a different path or spot. There’s nothing we can do. A. Stormwater infiltration into the lake There was brief discussion on the stormwater . It’s still being worked on . We are trying to figure out what we might be able to do. We want to eventually have it set up to have our sewer lines cleaned and televised just to see what kind of shape they are in. VILLAGE BOARD MEETING – November 3, 2025, PAGE 3 B. Boat wash down Very brief discussion on the boat wash down. Through the fall and early winter, we are going to be hopefully come up with some kind of an idea of how maybe we can set something up. C. Possible location of handicap parking and ramp in front of discount grocery store Sonnenberg and Berry met with Jonh over at the discount grocery store where he wants to put the handicap ramp in. When John met with Jeremy , Jeremy came up with this idea of want ing to bring it right out to the street from the front door . They looked at it and that won’t work. They are going to be trying to get a hold of Jeremy and let him know how they feel it should go along the building. Reuter also brought up to him that John doesn’t own that property , he rents it. So, before anything can really be done, he needs to get permission from the owners of the property to do the handicap ramp. The way our ordinances read, they have to pay for half of it, that’s not something that John can do on his own. It’s John’s responsibility to talk to the owners, tell them what he wants to do and come up with the cost. Then we as a board when we have something in writing from the owners then maybe we can do something about it. D. Leaf pickup Leaf pickup is scheduled for November 17th - 21st. E. Public Works Directors Report Schultz – stated that they’ve been busy cleanin g valves. Some of them are packe d right to the top with sand, so we need to figure out a way to get the sand out of there. She knows Ron had a setup where he used a big shop vac with a piece of PVC pipe on there . But neither one of them can get the generator started . There’s so much pressure on that generator that she can’t get it pulled, so she would like someone to help get that started. She called ACE to see if they had a different idea to use to suck out the sand, but we are talking 5 or 6 feet down. Klicko stated that they used to flush it with the fire truck. Oberbeck suggested maybe using the pressure washer. Schultz stated that those are both good ideas but then all that sand is going to be up on the street, and the pipe will be full of water. Berry stated that the best thing to do is to get the generator running so that you can suck out what you can with a shop vac, and once you can’t get any more sucked up then you go to running the hose down there trying to blow up as much as you can . You can make a slurry out of it. That’s what he’s done in the past. Schultz said she ran it by the Commissioner the other day, and he says they do have a truck but you have to rent the truck, the man and the trailer so it would be very expensive. He also said there’s a place in Marshfield that rents them, but she has not checked into them yet to see how much they are. They have cleaned out around the lake going down to the bri dge, so now you can stand on the land and cast out and fish without getting hung up. They’ve had so many people come up and say how amazing it looks and that they can actually fish here now. They are trying out a new mechanic on Friday. One that will come to the shop to work. He said that he will do that one Friday a month as needed. He will come in if they need help in an emergency, like when they are plowing snow . He works as a mechanic for the county, and he’s off on Fridays. Our mower is finally back. One thing that we need to look at is we really need new volleyball nets at the park . They are really in bad shape. She sees they say Miller Light there, does anyone know if those were donated by Miller Light? Oberbeck stated that those were from the volleyball league. The volleyball league has kind of dispersed throughout the area. There were multiple leagues that did not have team’s this session. Corner bar for one, they had a great setup. They cleaned everything out and never had any teams. A few people play at the Americal Legion , but as far as the entire league it was not what it has been in previous years . Do we know if the general public are using them? VILLAGE BOARD MEETING – November 3, 2025, PAGE 4 Schultz stated that she has not seen anyone using them. Pease stated that he has seen them used. When families rent the park on the weekend they use them. He has seen the school volleyball teams use them as well in August to get ready for their session. So, they do get some use. Schultz stated that they do keep the sand nice. They killed all the weeds in the sand this summer and they took down the grappler to use on the sand as well. Oberbeck stated that she should take that back through Public Works, and they can work through that fairly easy. They aren’t extraordinarily expensive, and we have the parks budget. Pease stated that maybe one of the bars in the area that doesn’t have league anymore might even be willing to donate the net they no longer use. Schultz stated that the sign for the park is done, although it is not installed yet. They are still working on getting over here to get it installed. But it looks really nice. We are still waiting for Fenner’s to take the fishing pier out down at the lake. And as soon as they start mixing salt sand, they are going to bring them a load. She finished filling out the LRIP application. Strobe lights have been installed on the Ram truck. We have put together a free event for our community. We would like to have Santa come and visit . She has a friend that has volunteered to do that for us . Reuter has made up a flyer for the event. We want people to bring their families or pets to come get their picture taken with Santa and have cookies and hot coco . It will be December 20th from 10:00 – noon. FRIENDSHIP LAKE DISTRICT REPORT BY TRUSTEE ASHWORTH Ashworth stated that there was no meeting last month, and there wasn’t going to be one until December 4 th, but the President is having surgery sometime this month, so they bumped up the meeting, and it will be on Thursday November 6 th at the Town of Adams town hall. Berry stated that it’s not really lake district, but he wants to give a shot out to the fundraising event for Patty and Eddie at the Cider Shack this past weekend. It was fabulous. There was an awesome turnout. It sounds like they made a lot of money to help them rebuild. FIRE DISTRICT REPORT BY TRUSTEE KLICKO Klicko stated that Mid-State Technical College had the opening of their burn training center next to the fire station. They had about 70 people come, so they had a pretty good turnout. They hosted lunch and then they went to the groundbreaking of their campus in Adams. The Fire District is buying some tires. Their latest grant is on hold because of the government shutdown. AMBULANCE COMMITTEE REPORT BY PRESIDENT SONNENBERG Sonnenberg stated that they had a meeting on October 22 nd at 6:15. They have a new secretary for the committee. The former secretary is having some health problems, so they are not able to continue in that capacity. The next meeting will be the 21st of January 2026 at 6:15. The data show that there really wasn’t much different activity from last year to this year. June and July this year were a lot higher than what we normally have. We had 156 calls in June, and 159 in July and then it tapered back down to 128 for August and September, and that’s more in the range of where we’ve been. CORRESPONDENCE There was no correspondence CONSIDERATION & ACTION ON THE APPROVAL OF OPERATOR’S LICENSE MOTION by Berry, second by Pierce to approve Operator’s License’s for Mona Johnson, motion carried. VILLAGE BOARD MEETING – November 3, 2025, PAGE 5 CONSIDERATION & ACTION ON THE APPROVAL OF MOBILE FOOD VENDING LICENSES MOTION by Berry, second by Pierce to approve Mobile Food Vending License’s for Rocky Rococo, and Modern Twist, LLC, motion carried. CONSIDERATION & ACTION ON THE APPROVAL OF WATER/SODA LICENSE MOTION by Berry, second by Pierce to approve Operator’s License’s for Modern Twist, LLC, motion carried. DISCUSSION WITH POLICE CHIEF WOLLIN & POSSIBLE ACTION ON CODE ENFORCEMENT OFFICER City of Adams Police Chief Wollin talked to the board about code enforcement options that the Village could consider. He stated that before he could prepare any proposal for the Village to look over, he would need to know more information on what we are looking for, and what services we want. After a lengthy discussion back and forth a MOTION by Oberbeck, second by Berry, to table this with further comprehensive discussion between the Finance committee with budgeting , as well as Public Works for committee ideas, motion carried. SET AGENDA ITEMS FOR DECEMBER MEETING Public Hearing Set date and time for Village Caucus Appoint election inspectors for 2026 Discussion on yearend bonuses Adoption of the 2026 budget Being of no further business to come before the board, MOTION by Berry, second by Ashworth to adjourn, motion carried. Meeting ended at 7:10 __________________________________________ Rebecca Reuter Village Clerk