April 14, 2025

1 TOWN OF PORT EDWARDS MONTHLY BOARD MEETING MINUTES Date: April 14th, 2025 Call to Order: Chairman Randy Moody called the regular Town Board meeting to order at 6:05 p.m. The pledge of allegiance was recited to begin this meeting after the call to order. Meeting Certification: This meeting has been properly posted (on the Town Hall door), as well as published on our website to notify the public of date, place, time, and agenda. Attendance: Chairman Randy Moody, Supervisors Tim Schmidt, Jeff O’Donnell, Treasurer Kathy Reese, Clerk Michelle Sorenson. There were also fourteen people present from the public. Approval of minutes from November 11th, 2024, Monthly Board Meeting: Clerk Sorenson presented the minutes from March meeting to the Board. After review of minutes, Tim Schmidt made a motion to approve the minutes as drafted. There was no second on the motion. O'Donnell suggested changes in some of the wording. O’Donnell then read the wording that was to be removed from the minutes. Moody agreed with the changes suggested by O’Donnell. Moody made a motion to amend the minutes by removing the commentary regarding the Caucus minutes as the Caucus minutes were approved during the February meeting. O’Donnell then seconded Moody’s motion to approve the minutes with the changes. Vote was 3 yes - 0 no. Agenda: Approve the agenda Approve previous meeting minutes Approve payment of bills Treasurer and Clerk’s monthly reports Set date for May 2025 board meeting Highway Superintendent report New business: Transition of Town materials to new incoming board members Board member compensation Road Crew Payments Fire call report New email for Supervisor Schmidt Election Results Discuss re-instating the constable position Old business: 2025 Road project update Public input Topics for future discussion Adjourn 2 Motion was made by O’Donnell and seconded by Schmidt to approve the agenda. All were in favor so motion carried. Bills: Schmidt made a motion to approve payment of the town bills listed by the clerk. Motion was seconded by O’Donnell and the motion carried with all in favor. Total disbursements for the month of March were $22,316.08 with total revenues being $20,071.95. 3-0 vote in favor. Later in the meeting Moody requested that one more bill be approved for payment to Neiman’s Towing. O’Donnell made a motion to pay the Neiman’s bill, seconded by Schmidt. Motion carried with a 3-0 vote in favor. Treasurer and Clerk Financial Reports: The Treasurer and Clerk reports were reviewed by the Board. All reports balance. Total Town money as of March 31st, 2025, is $200,187.93. Schmidt made a motion to accept the reports as delivered. O’Donnell seconded said motion. Motion carried with a 3-0 vote in favor. Highway Superintendent Report: The grader went down due to a radiator fan failure. Wood County Highway Dept. is working to repair the fan. Adam noted the frost is still coming out of the ground on Batterman. The grader should be repaired sometime during the week of April 14th. Once the grader is returned, they will work on smoothing out Batterman Road. Most of their efforts have been patching roads around the Township. New Business: Transition of Town materials to new incoming board members: Supervisor Trevor Jensen will take over the porttownsup2@solarus.net. O’Donnell will go over the materials with Jensen following the meeting. Sorenson stated she had everything here and will bring it in at the end of the meeting. Sorenson also provided a list of items returned and requested the Board sign the list. Board member compensation: Moody requested the Board approve $80 compensation plus mileage for the work he performed assisting the Road Supervisor with a stuck plow truck. They tried to pull it out with the tractor, but ended up contacting Neiman’s towing to remove the truck. Schmidt made a motion to approve compensation for Moody, seconded by O’Donnell. 3-0 vote in favor. Road Crew Payments: The Board discussed moving the Road Crew to direct deposit. Reese provided the information on the costs associated with Direct Deposit. $50 annually for the ACH manager token, $5.00 per file, 10 cents per item in the file. $10.50 per month. O’Donnell made a motion to approve moving to Direct Deposit for the Road Crew, seconded by Schmidt. 3-0 vote in favor. Fire call report: Grass fire on County Road JJ reported by a passerby. 3 Shed Fire (wood stove) at 2349 County Road G, responding agencies were Rapids Fire Dept, Med 3, and Port Edwards Fire Dept. The Clerk will bill Ryan and Jackie Gaupp $1000 for the fire call. A passerby reported a fire at 1607 Kimball Ave. Assistant Chief Faivre made contact with the property owner. The property owner had a burning permit and was told he was doing nothing wrong. No Charge for this call. New email for Supervisor Schmidt: Solarus will create a new email account for Schmidt with the email address: porttownsup1@solarus.net. Randy will invite Marty Welter to the May meeting to update the website with the new email account and photos of the new Board members. Election Results: Moody requested the election results from the Clerk. Sorenson stated she did not have the results. Discuss re-instating the constable position: Moody spoke with Sheriff Becker at last month’s WTA meeting. Sheriff Becker has been approached about having the Wood County Sheriff’s Department enforce the Town ordinances. He is looking into hiring a full-time deputy to enforce the Town ordinances. Each Township would share in the cost of the deputy wages and benefits. It was decided to hold off until they get more information from Sheriff Becker. 2025 Road project update: Roland Hawk called Moody saying the Ho-Chunk contacted him to see if we were still interested in repaving Creamery Road. They want to do the work in 2026 from County Road JJ to G and then in 2028 they would do the section from G to Deer Lane. The Ho-Chunk will give us $212,500.00 for the JJ to G section. This amount could be increased if they have extra funding available. Public input: A question was asked about when the annual Town Tire and Appliance collection will be held. The dates will be set during the April 15, 2025 Annual Meeting. A question was asked as to when Wilhorn Road will be chip sealed since the road is over 5 years old. What is the forecast to replace Kimball Avenue? Maybe do Creamery, Kimball, and Grunewald at the same time and use the $95,000 to get Kimball replaced instead of chip sealing Lynn Hill. What can be done to make sure the road projects don’t cost more than what was quoted? Does the west end of Ver Bunker belong to the Town? Moody responded that the first two houses belong to the Village, and then the road is split 50/50 the south side of the 4 road belongs to the Town of Port Edwards; the north side belongs to the Town of Seneca. There have been complaints about the condition of the road. Do we have anything budgeted for gravel? The Board should start budgeting gravel for Batterman. It was suggested the Board budget $25,000 for gravel to fix Batterman Road and the south end of Kimball Avenue. Where can I get a county UTV map. Moody suggested getting maps from Country Sports. What was Nekoosa hauling out of the south end of Section Street? Why would they do that when the roads are at their most venerable state? The roads shouldn’t be abused this time of year. They were running 5 trucks steady from the city landfill. It was either black dirt or ground up asphalt. Randy thanked Michelle and Jeff for their service. Jeff served from 2015-2025. Michelle served from 2006-2025. A small celebration followed with cake. Next Scheduled Board Meeting: The next regularly scheduled monthly Town Board Meeting is set for Monday, May 12th, 2025. The meeting will be called to order at 6:00p.m. in the Port Edwards Town Hall. Adjourn: Being no other business to conduct, O’Donnell made a motion to adjourn the meeting at 7:03p.m. and Schmidt seconded. All were in favor and the motion carried. Respectfully submitted, Kathy Reese, Treasurer