2025 Annual Meeting Minutes

1 Minutes of the Annual Meeting April 15, 2025 Town of Matteson, Waupaca County, Wisc. The 169th Matteson Annual Meeting was called to order at 7:00 PM by Chairman DuWayne Federwitz. The Pledge of Allegiance was recited by all, and the Open Meeting Statement was read by Federwitz. Federwitz gave an overview of what type of business can be conducted at the annual meeting. Minutes of the April 16, 2024 Annual Meeting were read by the clerk. A motion was made by Kristy Hanson and seconded by Pat Behnke to approve the minutes as read. Motion carried. The following is the CAWS report given by Greg Hanson. Board members are Greg Rose, Chairman; Dave Viergutz, Vice Chairman; Greg Hanson, Treasurer and committee members Dan Behnke, Pete Sasse and Tom Lederer. Stacy Sonnenberg is the recording secretary. Site manager is Kurt Buch and one other employee, Noah Kiefer. A new contract with GFL was signed at $71/ton and $140/pull plus a fuel surcharge which amounts to about another $100/pull. Allison Burr is the county employee who coordinates the CAWS site with the PTF site. We received three bids for the 2025 contract and GFL was still the cheapest. Kurt does snow plowing with his own truck. New plastic dumpsters were received in January. Junk tires are now picked up by MKE which cost about one half of Liberty, who does it for the county. Scrap metal was sold in January for $170/ton. Aluminum cans were sold at 60 cents/pound. Both cardboard sheds needed repair. One was damaged when dumpsters were changed and the other was hit by a vehicle or snowplow or end loader. The site will be open on Fridays and Saturdays from May through October. The rest of the year it wll only be open on Saturdays. CAWS applied for a grant to purchase a cardboard baler but did not get it. We are looking into accepting electronics probably within the next month or so. The 2025 budget is for $62,183 in revenue and $67,231 in expenses. The next report is for the Clintonville Area Fire Department as given by Dan Behnke. Each fall the City of Clintonville and the Towns that receive service from the Clintonville Fire Department meet to discuss the next year’s fire budget. In 2024, the Town of Matteson paid 2 almost $37,000.00 for fire protection services. In 2024, there were 256 calls for the Clintonville Area Fire Department. 79 were for medical assistance; 42 were dispatched but cancelled en route; 31 assist invalid; 14 false alarms; 13 building fires; 8 motor vehicle accidents with injuries; 8 carbon monoxide incidents and 11 hazardous material responses. Next is the ambulance report as given by DuWayne Federwitz. The EMS area is changing rapidly. There are EMT shortages nationwide. Currently, the Clintonville Ambulance Service has 9 full-time and 14 part-time staff members. Many commute to Clintonville from other communities. Clintonville is considered a critical care unit. The ambulance service is supported by a budget that exceeds $1,290,000.00 with approximately 44% coming from municipal subsidies. Approximately 45% from direct patient care revenue and miscellaneous. We did have a little over $50,000.00 from donations. There was $9,150.00 received from rent of part of the building. Non-transport fees were put into effect on October 1, 2014, and have steadily increased. In the year 2024 there were 1379 calls. The total number of calls was 14 less than 2023. No recent data available as to the type of calls, etc. Centralized billing should enable us to get the type of calls by demographics starting with 2025. Continued fund-raising events will continue to take place to meet the needs of special equipment that needs to be purchased periodically to enhance service. With technology changing the service will farm out the billings for service provided starting April 1 of 2024. This will save money and avoid potential lawsuits from government regulations. Limited personnel are now employed. This includes maintenance of vehicles too. There are four ambulances. The service took action to purchase a new truck with a refurbished box in 2023 for delivery in early 2025. This resulted in substantial savings to the service. The estimated cost is $295,000.00. The commission has been operating with Sheri Wendorf primarily since mid-2024, as Shelly fully retired late in the year. The commission opened up the process of hiring a full- time Director in October. Theresa Huss was hired to start January 1, 2025. Patti Shambeau- Hill commenced working for the CAAS in late 2023 a few hours - two days per week. The challenge we face is keeping good employees. Therefore, the commissioners are challenged to examine pay and benefits as related to surrounding communities of similar size. The commission started with the 2022 budget by adding Flex insurance benefits for all employees who desire to enroll. The complete 2024 annual report is on file at the Matteson Town Hall. 3 Next is the Town of Matteson Comprehensive Planning report given by DuWayne Federwitz. The members include Ben Knaack, Paul Kirchner, Steve Kluth and Pete Gretzinger with DuWayne Federwitz as the chairman. Each January the committee needs to meet and elect officers. The town board needs to approve the committee members annually. The Planning and Zoning Office in Waupaca has invited all Towns annually to attend a meeting outlining the proposed changes to existing Ordinances affecting land, lakes, etc. This gives each Town time to discuss proposed changes for three months at a local level before bringing them back to the County Committee for final approval. As with any Ordinance, once operative, changes need to be made. The revised Ordinance changes are adopted by the County Board annually. The local comprehensive planning committee meets on all zoning issues of property division of less than forty acres, density issues, and changes in preferred land classifications as adopted in September of 2007. This process takes additional time due to proper notices from the public, etc. This was not an option in the past since all decisions were made by the county. Any land-use permits, and all other permits need to be obtained through the Zoning office in Waupaca and/or under the Building Inspector that was put in place in 2020. Almost all of the permits can be found on Waupaca Counties website. The Town of Matteson is under Farmland Preservation as of 2015. The Farmland Preservation agreement was updated in 2024. The Town of Matteson held a public hearing in early 2018 to apply and to be part of a seven-township area in the northeast corner of Waupaca County and Outagamie County to request eligibility for an AE (agricultural area). This was approved in June of 2018. Next is the annual road report given by DuWayne Federwitz. The roads and their maintenance continue to be the major expense to the Town. The State recognizes 41.3 miles of road on which the Town receives $2,734.00 per mile from the state in 2023. This amount was frozen by the Governor this past session. In 2024 the Town of Matteson spent a little over $327,000.00 on direct road cost and maintenance. This included $288,413.00 on Hanson Road starting from County Y going toward Bodoh Road. This included sub road work as well as two plus inches of new laid blacktop. A portion will be completed in 2025 since there is not enough money in the budget. Further spent on grinding up a portion of Bodoh Road at a cost of $16,800.00, limited seal coating for $7,255.00 and finally a new membrane over Klemp Road for $15,270.00. All items were completed by Waupaca County. 4 The Board tours all roads in mid-spring to assess the condition of each road. They then determine the appropriate repairs and make a five-year replacement and maintenance plan. The Board has passed an Ordinance to have weight limits similar to the county’s established weight limits in the spring. This helps to protect recently reconstructed and newly paved roads. A complete list of all roads meeting these criteria is on file at the Town Hall. The use of ATV/UTV is permitted on all county roads. The Town of Matteson passed an Ordinance to permit them on all its Town roads too. This still means a driver must abide by the State laws by operating the same. No complaints have been received since the adoption of this Ordinance. Casey Beyersdorf and Nick Thiel were present representing the Waupaca County Highway Department. They thanked the Town for their continued support. Several grants were received by the County Highway Department in 2024 to be used on various county highways. Beyersdorf explained the new equipment that needs to be purchased, and that the Larrabee shop is in bad repair and needs work. Beyersdorf has been the Waupaca County Highway Superintendent for 9 years now. The county has 333 miles of county roads. This ends the reports. A motion was made by Pat Behnke and seconded by Duane Reetz to donate $1,000 to the Clintonville Public Library as done in years past. Motion carried. Question was asked about the potential solar farm in the Town. Chairman stated the Town plans to have an attorney work with the solar farm company so we may have an opportunity to negotiate some items. Proposed site would generate 100 megawatts of power. Question was asked about the decommissioning of the solar farm at some point in the future. The next annual meeting will be held on April 21, 2026 at 7:00 PM at the Matteson Town Hall. Respectfully submitted by Mike Mehlberg, Clerk. ____________________________________________ Mike Mehlberg, Clerk Elector Present: DuWayne Federwitz 5 Mike Mehlberg Greg Hanson Kristy Hanson Mollie Schuster Mark Schuster Pat Behnke Dan Behnke Sherie Gee Dan Hill Patti Hill Nick Thiel Casey Beyersdorf Sheri Wendorf Duane Reetz