Mulch will be available to residents

By John Faucher

On-site logging and brush clearing begins this week on two village-owned parcels east of Gilbert’s Sentry Foods in Hortonville.

Hortonville Public Works Director Carl McCrary told village board members on June 6 that logging contractors working on Grandview Road would shift their operations to the commercial site near Gilbert’s.

McCrary said crews will grind up the excess wood from Grandview and combining it with the wood cleared from the two commercial lots.

Village Administrator David DeTroye said the two commercial parcels are located within Tax Incremental District 3.

DeTroye

“The village earmarked $15,000 for the TID 3 development fund in the 2019 budget,” DeTroye said.

“Twelve thousand of that will be committed to the on-site logging and brush clearing at the property.”

DeTroye added the village is close to finalizing the sale of the lot to a prospective commercial developer.

He could not discuss details or name the prospective developer, but he was confident they are actively pursuing a sale.

McCrary said it made sense to mobilize the loggers to the property as long as they were already in the village working on the Grandview project.

“I think compared to some of the numbers thrown out there by potential developers on what it would cost to clear that, I think this ($12,000) is a good value,” McCrary said.

He said the mulch produced from the chipped brush and trees will be utilized in village parks and on the municipal campus.

Once the village’s projects are complete, the mulch will be available to the public at the pickup site on Towne Drive.

“From the pile that’s building up over there, it looks like we’re going to have a pretty fair amount of mulch for village residents to grab at their own convenience,” DeTroye said.

A lot to the west of Gilbert’s Sentry Foods was also recently developed with a Dollar General and strip mall.