2024 Audit Review. What's Going On With Water & Sewer Utilities? Village Center Timeline Requested. To Appraise Or Not To Appraise...What Cost To Relocate Pickle Ball & Skate Board Park?
Sutton Farms Moves To Design Detail/Dev Agreement Phase. President Soderberg Ties Residential Developments To What's Going On With Village Center. Trustee Baum's Social Media Comments Noticed.
7/7/2025 Village Board Meeting Agenda Packet here.
From agenda packet.
Recording starts here. Pledge and moment of silence. Swearing in of Sergeant Justin Clemens here. President’s report and announcements here.
Citizen input starts here.
Disappointing Independence Day activities here.
Lannon and County Line Road here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Chamber of Commerce update here.
Ethics Hearing here.
Budget here.
Read in emails here.
Village center here.
Tardy emailed comment rejected.
Appointments to Boards, Committees or Commissions here. Senior Center, Lynn Bracie; and, Utility Advisory Commission, Scott Hefle and James Hansen. Approved.
Consent agenda here.
TLC Landscaping CUP for grading and filling within a wetland setback here.
The project is reviewed once again. There is a history of noise by various operations and business types on this property, a landscaping and construction business site. At the same time the owner is attempting to refill soil to certain levels before the new FEMA flood maps are approved, possibly in the spring. Because of eight years of operations, noise, complaints, number of residents from the area attending, (and although not related to the matter on the agenda), the village acknowledges, and so does the owner that there should be an end to the noisy activity associated with the trucks dumping fill.
(See previous newsletters for prior.)
The matter on the agenda was to allow them to grade within a set back that is associated with a wetland. Since the wetland is not a constantly wet area, unrelated to an active river, it passed.
Sutton Farm PDD at Lannon and County Line Road here. The project has been moving through the process since January. Assistant planner, Jordan Yanke, reviews the project. The short version is that a developer wants to buy it from a family who used to farm the land, and wants to put 273 units on the property. The proposal is most controversial due to the townhouse style units in the plan. Many of the comments above are related to this one.
It will be phased with many of the higher density uses being built first. There are several conditions to be met.
Some hurdles: bedrock, meeting village engineering standards for sanitary sewer depths, a private lift station and its maintenance, future land for a village well, appropriate buffering around existing residents, connection to Lannon Road not directly opposite residents’ windows, building architecture, finances, and more.
The discussion is lengthy. In the end, it moves forward to next stage out of conceptual stage and into design development phase. This is where the specifics are worked out.
President Ties Sutton Farms and Village Center and Blackstone Creek Properties’ projects together here and to the prior fact-finding meeting at previous plan commission meeting here.
They vote and it passes on to the next phase.
Zoning Text Amendments here.
Aldi agent change here.
Jase Golf LLC alcohol application here.
Buzdum’s temporary outdoor entertainment permit application here.
2024 Audit Presentation by auditor here. Amanda Blomberg, Baker Tilly managing director goes through her presentation.
Actual change in the fund balance was a decrease of $364,000.
From agenda packet.
Both utilities have higher expenses than revenues. Sewer is directly tied to the use of water, which is down. TIF dollars for TID 8 are being charged back to the water utility for all the items constructed recently. Maintenance has been on a tear, in of itself a good thing, but the costs are showing.
They do not discuss if there are more costs coming from any TIDs that will affect the water utility. Are there?
The current debt to equity of the water utility is 17%.
What are the projected additional charge backs from TIDS?
MMSD had an unexpectedly higher fee hike this year.
Link to MMSD’s website for budgets, financial reports and other documents here. It looks like they have gone all in on green energy and are starting a spending spree. Could that be contributing to the higher fees?
Village Center district timeline and selection of developer here. Request for Qualifications (RFQ) presentation from Bailey Copeland introduced by the village administrator, Steve Kreklow. Trustee Jan Miller asks for clarification on the current contracts for Copeland Companies. Both contracts are open.
Option 1: Wait for zoning adoption before RFP. NO.
Option 2: Issue RFP now for phase 1 without zoning in place. No 5 storey buildings.
Option 3: Poll interested developers before issuing RFP. Why not?
Is the developer or the village driving the vision?
Trustee Baum asks if the control of these efforts are back at the plan commission. Yes. He argues that the village board should by—pass the plan commission. President Soderberg responds that
Trustee Baum says that the plan commission doesn’t have all the information.
But, isn’t planning part of their job, and isn’t he admitting that they have not been allowed to do this in the past administration.
Trustee Pieper asks to follow Roberts Rules.
“What does the board want to do with this project? …. Multi-family has to go in first. Retail second. What direction do we want to give to staff to move forward.” Trustee Baum.
He further explains he wants a timeline of the order of work to figure out to move the project forward. Trustee Pieper makes a motion to do so. They discuss.
“Phase 2 may never happen. More than likely a TID may not happen.” President Soderberg.
Trustee Warren asks about the prior RFQ list and the 13-14 developers who may be interested.
Director Retzlaff asked what’s going to happen to the previous Rinka efforts? Are we starting from scratch? All of it.
Deliberation continues. They eventually vote to have the timeline created.
Blackstone Creek LLC land swap appraisal here. The item opens with a conversation about tabling the item due to lateness of meeting and quality of the discussion - authorization of costs for an appraisal of all properties involved.
President Soderberg wants to know what will happen with pickle ball courts and skate board park. Not on the agenda.
Trustee Kaminski makes an amendment to also look into the cost of replacing the pickle ball courts and skate board park.
Trustee Rick Miller apologizes for not notifying the HOA of Blackstone subdivision of the agenda item. He will change that going forward.
Jim Sedgwick, representative of Blackstone Creek Golf Course, who wants the land swap to develop apartments on the eventual new property boundaries, asks why the village would get an appraisal without having an agreement.
They vote to add getting costs of the pickle ball and skate board park relocations.
Trustee Kaminski makes sense regarding getting more information to be able to make some decisions.
Meeting ends slightly before midnight.