City still looking for road funding options
By Bert Lehman
After months of discussion and meetings, the Clintonville City Council voted to forgo a transportation utility fee (TUF), but left the door open to reconsider that decision in the future.
The council came to that decision at its Feb. 9 council meeting.
Along with not implementing a TUF, the council directed city administration to continue to research how to pay for city roads through all possible methods and that any change in funding road repairs would not happen before 2022.
Prior to discussing the matter, the council was read a letter signed by representatives of 66 city businesses.
The businesses asked the council not to implement a TUF.
The council packet for the meeting also included a letter from Christus Lutheran Church, signed by 58 people, that also urged the council not to implement a TUF.
Acting Mayor and Council President Mike Hankins said the consensus of a special city Finance Committee meeting on Jan. 19 was that a TUF in its current draft was too costly, possible revisions of a TUF needed to be reviewed and other options needed to be explored.
Finance concluded the city should not move forward with a TUF or other options while city businesses and residents are struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The committee recommended the TUF discussion be brought back to the council in an effort to postpone a TUF.
Hankins said he was also concerned about Clintonville being one of the first cities in Wisconsin to try a TUF.
“I do think overall we should be taking our time, making sure we’re looking at all options and that we’re listening to our constituents,” Hankins told the council.
Decision postponed
Hankins recommended the council postpone acting on a TUF for at least one year.
“And I think when we’re postponing it, we’re talking about looking at the TUF, possibly making some fairly big changes in it, if we even keep looking at it. We may not,” Hankins said.
Ald. Steve Kettenhoven acknowledged the city’s streets are in need of repair, and some type of funding to make those repairs is needed, but agreed with Hankins that this is not the right time for a TUF.
Ald. Brad Rokus agreed, but he also acknowledged the city will need to come up with a funding mechanism in the future to repair city streets.
He said that future funding mechanism, whatever it is, probably will have some controversy behind it.
Ald. Jim Supanich was also in agreement that now is not the time to implement a TUF in the city.
“We need to look at implementing something to guarantee road repair going forward over the next 10 years, whether it’s the transportation utility or something else, I don’t know at this point what that ultimately would be,” Supanich said. “I would like to see us continue discussions with the community since we’ve had so much response to see if there are some other methods they would recommend or that they would support.”
He said he received some calls from residents in which they said they would support a TUF if it was at a lower fee level.
“Maybe that’s what we have to look at, but this is not the time nor the place to implement this,” Supanich said.
Ald. Rusty Mitchell recommended the city not give up on the TUF idea, and continue to research the topic.
City Administrator Sharon Eveland recommended that whatever action the council decided to take, it should have clear and specific directives for city staff.
“This needs to be a unified decision, whatever that decision is,” Eveland said.