You
They can speak and then
leave if they still choose.
So I guess I'm looking if there's anybody willing to make a motion to call things out of order and have item 9 on the agenda actually come right after 8.8.
Make the motion to move 9.1 after 8.8.
Second.
Motion by Colleen, seconded by Brad.
Is there any discussion?
Hearing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Motion passes 5-0.
Thank you.
Item number 5 is a consent agenda.
Is there a motion or does anybody wish to break out any of the items?
I'll make a motion to accept the consent agenda.
Thank you.
Second.
So any other.
Any other discussion or sorry, no discussion.
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Motion passes 5-0.
Presentation 6.1 is a hearing.
Public hearing on amendment at Chapter 13 of the deforest municipal code subdivision and development. I open this public hearing at 6.05 on the right.
Is there anybody that wishes to kick that off or.
This is an item that's coming up on the agenda after this and we'll have a general presentation about it, but this is generally in regard to.
And that's what's called subdivision and development.
Yeah, I think so.
Mark offers the bill of dependers online. I think it might give a brief little intro here before the public hearing gets opened.
Sure. Thanks, Alex.
So this is related to item 8.2 that comes later on the agenda.
There's a proposed amendment to the villages subdivision regulations.
It relates to the requirements for private roads.
And the.
Specifications for requiring compliance with design guidelines that are also the subject of an agenda item tonight.
The reason we have a public hearing before the village board and we didn't tackle it at P and Z.
Is that state statutes related to subdivision regulations.
Require a village board public hearing before you can change subdivision regulations.
There was a public hearing on this ordinance, the zoning aspects of this ordinance before P and Z.
As well, and I'm happy to answer questions on.
The ordinance, particularly if there are people here to speak on it, but I'll share a little bit more when we get to item 8.2. If that works.
Yep. Thank you, Mark.
Miss Paging through. I do not see anybody wishing to speak on item 6.1.
Thank you for that opening, Mark, and I will close the public hearing at 6.07.
And we'll move past item 7 on to item 8.8.
Resolution 2026-12.
Resolution amending the village of the forest design and construction guidelines for public works and related construction improvements.
It's like this is Mark and Judd.
Yep, now let Mark lead the way and I'll fill in where it needed.
Thanks, Judd. The village has for several years now had a design and construction guidelines for public.
Infrastructure sewer, water, public roads.
This these guidelines are shared with the development community and by village contractors.
To make sure that folks that are building public facilities are doing it to a high and common set of standards.
The proposal would extend those design and construction guidelines to apply not only to public infrastructure, but also to private roads.
The village has for the last 15 years since development picked up after the great recession had a number of developments, particularly condominium developments that have leaned on and relied on private roads for access.
Over that timeframe, village consultants and staff have developed a set of best practices that has evolved over time to make sure that.
Proper access is provided for the folks that live there for emergency services for garbage collection.
And that over time, there's a mechanism to make sure that those private roads are taken care of so they don't provide a burden to those residents or or the village.
Ultimately, we felt it was time, particularly with the number of developments that have asked for private roads over.
The last few years to memorialize those standards within the villages guidelines.
And the predominant changes here is to to apply those standards.
They the private road standards, inconveniently are right at the end of this document that you see on on screen right now.
And the main thrust of them is to make sure that the folks that are interested in building private roads are designing them in accordance with standards that very closely replicate those for public roads.
I'm sorry, you have to keep going, whoever's in control there.
And that they not become the deep area. There you go. They not become the default choice for folks interested in developing land.
They do, in our opinion, as staff have their time in place, kind of many of developments being a very common example of that.
But we wanted to make sure that they have design and construction that meets a common set of standards and a high set of standards so that they're not viewed as the best choice in every case by a residential developer.
I think with that, I will see if Judd has anything to add, but also mentioned that the public services committee has reviewed these after they're vetted for several months by staff and has made a recommendation to the board to endorse and adopt these.
Just, I would, I think it marked out a great job summarizing. I was just at these are standards, which we've asked developers to abide by with the private drives that they've done thus far.
Anticipating that potentially at some point, the future that could come back to a village board saying, Hey, we can't afford this road.
We need it should really be a public road and it's standard out like, well, this was established this way, but everybody has the same road built underneath them.
Whether it is a private drive or a public drive and should that village board in the future say, yeah, we'll take that private drive on from a public services perspective.
We don't have to worry about what the base courses we can, we can, it's built to all our other standards in that regard.
So these are standards that are good to have codified and share them with all of our developments when they come through.
There are things that we go through and we have kickoff meetings for developments when they start.
We have reconstruction meetings and again, make sure that they're abiding by them and then our observation engineers out in the field also using tools.
So it's a good document. I think it's, I don't know how unusual it is for us to have, but I think it's pretty good that we have it.
And it's been around for so long and it keeps evolving every year. Do we add different things as we've learned her as standards might change throughout the practice so.
Judd and board, if I could just add two things first off.
There's nothing in this document that promotes the use of private roads and I would argue that setting a high bar for them actually will reduce the incentive for for private roads.
I also note that the village ordinances which are the subject of the next agenda item.
Gives the full discretion to the village to whether and where to accept private roads instead of public roads. And that I think that's important to think about and to consider when you're looking at this proposal.
And then the final thing I'll mention is that there are some miscellaneous items that you saw cross outs and underlines before the navigator got to the private road stuff.
So those are some miscellaneous things that we felt as staff along the way we might as well clean up and advise some minor changes to you.
As you were adopting this amended document and again we can talk about any of those or answer any questions when we get to the discussion part of this item. Thank you.
Judd, we do have nobody scheduled to appear. So we are on to discussion and possible action.
Right.
Yeah, the only question I had was under three instead of street lighting she'll be under the direction of or meet the standards of line energy. I was curious why that didn't match some of the other language that was at the direction of public services.
So when we do street lighting we won't we use we use a lion and their poles we don't.
We have limited areas where we have decorative poles they get expensive and then there are to manage.
When we use a lion we get a set price point so we know what the cost is every month.
And the upfront cost is the same to put in so it's just easier for us to manage over the long haul so we don't have to have a separate meter and then.
I think if you recall we've added in the CIP to replace the poles that are downtown right a lot of them are starting to chip and fail and some of you have fallen over because they rushed out so if we can avoid that it's done and we don't have that.
Extra concern we have to carry we can just turn to a lion and say hey this bull needs something done to it and they take care of it.
Thank you Brad.
Anybody else?
Anybody want to make a motion?
I'll make a motion to.
It's gone.
Yeah.
I'll make a motion to a purple resolution 2026 012.
Thank you.
Second.
Motion by Colleen seconded by Jan.
Any further discussion?
Seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Motion passes 50.
Item 8.2 ordinance 2026 01 ordinance amending the village subdivision and development regulations chapter 13 and zoning code chapter 15.
Backing private roads and the relationship with village design and construction guidelines.
Mark or Judd anything you want to add.
Stand on the last.
I will just say two quick things. Sorry, Jim. Two quick things.
The main purpose of this ordinance amendment is to.
In various places make sure that the village is requiring compliance with the design and construction guidelines.
And then the second thing that this ordinance does.
Primarily is to.
Move.
Anything in the subdivision and zoning ordinance that.
Smelled of a construction standard.
Over to the guidelines instead of having.
Staff and developers have to look at the ordinance and look at the guidelines and wonder where they might find a particular standard.
So you see a lot of cross outs.
That's not us removing standards.
If you put this side by side with the document, we were just looking at with all the blue text.
You'd see that those standards were picked up, moved in many cases, improved as they were brought over to the guidelines from this ordinance.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mark.
So next thing there is again, no public appearance. Nobody willing to wanting to speak in the public appearances. So discussion and passable action.
So I'm going to bring up one point of discussion. I guess.
Jed, I'll maybe look at you this, the engineering or what the guidelines for public works and related.
Is that going to be on our website then?
You know, how is somebody that you commented how you give it to developers during the say kickoff meeting? I'm guessing it'll be available somehow to.
If it's not already, we would certainly find a place to put it on the website under public services.
I wonder if it could be.
Yeah, and it could be under the bid area where we when we post bids out for projects.
I'm sure it references it in there. It might even be a part of the.
Quest packet, but we could certainly put it there and have it available for folks to review if they want.
Okay, I personally would appreciate that. So Brad looks like you're ready to push your button.
Motion to approve ordinance 2026 001.
Second.
Motion and by brand seconded by Jan. Any further discussion?
Seeing none. All those in favor of the motion please signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed? Motion passes five zero.
Thank you.
Item number 8.3.
Ordinance 2026.02.
Ordinance amending.
Section 1502 and repealing and recreating sections 15.155.
That a forest municipal code.
To update regulation governing the wellhead protection.
Overlay zoning.
Mark and Judd.
Mark, I'll just jump in quick. This is something that the board had seen previously.
I sometime last summer. I think we brought these wellhead protection ordinance, not the ordinance itself,
but just the wellhead protection plan.
It had been before the public services committee and then Mark.
We shared with Mark. He made some adjustments from what we had shared.
Not really to the plan, but to the ordinances. And that's what Mark can go over here.
How these things are, why this is laid out how it is. Thanks, Mark.
You bet.
So the purpose of the ordinance is to implement the plan.
The plan advised new areas that are important to protect groundwater.
Within recharge areas of the villages wells.
Those recharge areas were developed based on a scientific method that's sort of beyond me as an urban planner.
But form the basis for redrawing the overlays owning district that is intended to protect.
Those wells from undesirable land use activities that may otherwise contaminate groundwater in those areas.
The villages had a wellhead protection ordinance in place for several years, I think, since the early 2010s.
This particular ordinance would do two things. I mentioned one already.
It would redraw the wellhead protection overlay districts around the villages wells.
As at present, they're drawn on the villages zoning map as.
Circles that have a 1200 foot radius without respect to sort of the science for how water is actually moving the ground water is moving underground.
This ordinance would improve that to redraw them. Thank you for the screen display.
According to where the actual recharge areas where the water is actually moving underground to hit those wells.
In some cases, that's greater than 1200 feet. In other cases, that's less than 1200 feet, but in any case, it's related to science.
And so remember, these are areas where there are particular regulations, additional regulations on land use that go beyond standard zoning.
So it makes sense, in my opinion, to apply them where they matter and not require them where they don't matter.
The second major thing that the ordinance amendment does is provides, in fact, stricter standards for land use regulations within those redefined wellhead protection areas.
Many of the uses that are permitted uses today have become conditional uses under the ordinance.
Stormwater management basins are one of them, so we have to be careful.
And if someone's doing a stormwater basin, where there's sedimentation and so forth, and infiltration, that those become a conditional use.
The second thing and thank you for again for the depth screen capture here, anticipating my every word.
A lot of conditional uses in the current ordinance are going to become permitted prohibited uses in the new one.
So a lot of the stuff you see on screen right now, some of it's already prohibited, but some of it could squeak through the door right now under conditional use allowances within the wellhead protection ordinances.
That would no longer be permitted.
So I'm happy to answer any questions about the ordinance. It was unanimously recommended by the P and Z last month after a public hearing was held.
I will add just a couple things also mark the status received DNR approval so the wellhead protection plan did go to the Department of Natural Resources, which is our preeminent authority over the water so that are in the village in the state of Wisconsin.
And they had approved this previously the wellhead protection ordinance I think was adopted in 2012 did not cover well six, which at the time was.
Well, one, when we were a separated water utilities rights we had an earth utility in the south utility.
And so well one, which is not well six did never never had a wellhead protection plan to it. So this also encapsulates that well.
And well seven in the future when that comes online, whether it be in the proposed location that will do a test well this year, or if it ends up being somewhere else.
We'll be back to you to make sure that again we'll have science will work with Wisconsin rural water association helped us put this together.
Asselson I believe is his last name helped us work with this he does this for a lot of communities throughout the state.
It was and he works again with science that scientists at the DNR to help formulate these things and understand how that water flows underground.
So again, when well seven is is done and it's ready to be put online that will come back to add that in as part of the wellhead protection plan.
Okay, thank you.
So again, there is nobody wishing to speak under this item so discussion and possible action anybody.
I think since the DNR has approved this plan that I'll make a motion to approve ordinance two zero zero two.
Thank you, Jan. Is there a second?
Second.
Second violation.
Any further discussion?
I have one thing to bring up myself. I don't see anybody else.
Mark, I know I brought up in the past and I don't remember if you can remind me.
I talked about how there was an old map that more or less showed like a bloom.
I'll call it or like a zone of influence.
I think it is what you guys talked about as say the five year draw.
Right now the map is I say drawn more or less on property lines from the looks of it.
I'm just wondering where that.
Looking map is or does that just completely go away.
Yeah, I think I understand what you're saying, Jim.
The the wellhead protection plan which we had in the P and Z packet, but we didn't overwhelm the board with your packet.
It has more details on these areas.
The plumes, so to speak, exist there.
And there's different time frames within which groundwater travels to the wells.
And so there's actually a few different plumes for each well,
depending on how many years, frankly, it takes what groundwater to get to the well.
For zoning purposes, it's a lot easier to regulate based on property boundaries than it is on.
Less easily defined plumes are organically shaped boundaries for lack of a better term.
So what the authors of the plan did is they took the five year zones of contribution.
Plumes essentially for each well and drew a boundary around them that followed parcel boundaries.
So it was easier to tell and to regulate.
Well, you're in and you're out.
And that's the kind of genesis.
So if you look at if you looked at the plan, that's the basis for these boundaries.
You'd see those things that you're thinking about, Jim.
And they were generalized and drawn to parcel boundaries on the zoning map.
Okay. Thank you, Mark. I very much appreciate that.
I just don't want those plumes. I'll use quotes to go away in case there's ever like divisions and stuff.
We could maybe look at individuals if they can come out if say the land division is not in the poem or something.
But I very much appreciate, like you said, the simplicity of following property lines for zoning. Thank you.
Any other discussion or comments?
Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying aye.
Any opposed? Motion passes five zero.
Thank you.
Yep. So next one is 8.4 resolution.
2026 dash 13 resolution authorizing participation and the preparation of an intergovernmental agreement between cities of Columbus,
Verona, and the city across plains to forest or villages across plains to forest, McFarland and Wanna Key.
Pursuant to Wisconsin statute, section 66.0301 for informational technology support.
This looks to be in.
Sure. So part of our university alliance program was working on how can we potentially work on some sort of an IT consortium away for municipalities that are all kind of in a similar boat when it comes to IT.
It falls to me in the village of the forest.
And, you know, so I've been drinking from a fire hose the last year and a half, trying to gather a lot of information and make the best decisions for our community.
And oftentimes it falls to us using a third party to be our IT vendor, right, our infrastructure management team.
And so with that, the prices last year escalated quite a bit with our previous ones. So we went out for RFP and got a new vendor and we're very pleased with their work thus far with them a year under our belts or so.
But Bill and I in discussion and talked about is there an opportunity for us to work with other municipalities and in essence kind of build a group that can work together on IT things.
It lowers our cost because it's a shared service and we can they can get one person to kind of oversee all of that.
So we had started with Wisconsin policy and should have, I think, was it the name of that? Is that right, Bill?
Yeah, so we've got some policy for them.
Just a little kind of going back even farther here.
I believe as we put together the strategic plan and this is a strategic objective.
We saw that IT costs was continuing an increase and the resources were diminishing.
And so as we came to that of our contract with our previous IT services manager, we actually took a look at what it would mean to hire an IT person, IT support on the staff.
And because of the specialties that you need to have within IT support a full municipality and the cost related to it in the backup that would be necessary for us to sustain our services, we chose that we determined that IT staff person would not make sense at the time.
Therefore, we RFP and went with a new service provider to be able to maintain our current services.
But we understood that as we continue those costs may increase, we found that other communities have similar size to us.
They have the same issues.
And so we begin discussions about what a consortium would look like.
We know that there are consortiums not only here in Wisconsin, but other states that have worked.
And so, like Judd said, we had the University of the Alliance do an initial feasibility study and they found that it would be feasible and then we started our conversations.
And we're at a point now where all the communities that are involved are ready to start putting together the potential and a governmental agreement.
As you see, as part of the resolution, that agreement will then be brought back here for the village board to review before moving forward.
I'll stop there and answer any questions that you have, but the next item just want to know that the next item also has to do with the deep and short term in regards to legal services.
Thank you.
Again, there is nobody wishing to speak under public appearances and discussion of possible action and JNSR here.
Okay, so in the report, page 14, the costs.
The costs that we're seeing there in the charts and so forth, that split between all the communities.
Or is it per user and that split between all the communities?
Is it a flat? Is it going to be like a flat amount split between all the communities or is it going to be like a user?
Yeah, so that's to be determined. So this report was based off of what the University Alliance group estimated by looking when they and then they only looked at three communities at the time, I believe.
We've had since the study, we've had more joined.
And so these are estimates as to what potentially a cost could be.
If you look at the resolution, it proposes that each of the communities get together and put forth a process for which to solicit.
And as part of that, an RFP process. And so we won't know what exact costs are will be until that point.
And again, we would then bring that back to the board for approval before we actually sign that agreement. So we don't know what the true costs are yet.
We know we know that from our IT services contract previously to the school.
Before we switch to this one, we were looking at 60% increases at that point.
So this is, again, it's an exploration effort.
Okay, so but in any event when we're looking at this scenario, when we do find out what the costs are, for example, if it's $8,200 a month, that it's at $8,200 per community.
Or is that divided between all the communities?
There would be an opportunity to split that depending on the level of service.
So if you read the report, I think they have a hybrid way of splitting that cost per user or by population.
You know, when we look at users, you know, we're looking at each entry point. So a laptop, a computer, iPad, not necessarily, you know, a person.
And so I think that's the point of kind of getting together here with the other communities to determine what is a fair way to assess the fees and costs associated.
If not only the services, but then you have equipment purchases on the other side of that too.
And so the details of that determination is yet to be determined.
Okay, thank you.
Right.
I got a couple of things. Is there a cost estimate savings that you guys have done yet or is that to be determined?
But we have not done that yet. We know that we know obviously from discussions, the cost annually to provide support for IT services.
Once we get that that RFP in and have full understanding of what it may cause to service all the communities, we would then be able to provide that cost analysis.
Obviously in a situation where we don't see any savings, we would not continue on with the consortium.
And then I saw a 2028 implementation date, you know, as the hope, I'm wondering, you know, one of the biggest challenges for governmental agencies is ransomware and security cyber security challenges.
So I'm wondering, is there an opportunity to push this forward quicker or have other the other communities seen this report and because it looks like a pretty good outline that you have a lot of things in writing or ready that you could utilize.
So we were intentional about the timeframe.
Our contract with the village and Marco goes through 2027.
We do have an early out clause in there.
As we were developing this, other communities were in different situations.
There were some that were currently going through RFP processes themselves.
Others have old contracts that they need to wait.
And so it's been one of those moving targets as far as when do we implement and how do we, how much time we need to negotiate the intergovernmental agreement and then get that across each of the boards and councils so that they feel comfortable.
I think that there's opportunity to increase or decrease with however you look at the timeline here.
I think we would enjoy that because we know that that those costs are coming.
But we're confident now with our cybersecurity and our current service provider.
As you see, we have with Marco ID.
We have what we feel and what they feel is the best cyber security setup we can have.
I'm not going to go into the details.
I can share them.
But the infrastructure that we use is from email protection, spam protection, phishing protection viruses.
And then, you know, firewalls, another firmware that helps prevent intrusion as well and has intrusion detection.
That's ongoing 24 seven right so there's an alert that something is happening through the device we use.
Marco is alerted if it's the middle of the night, then they can reach out and get to me if they need to.
And we can formulate some sort of a plan that there's one that's required that's immediate.
But from a cyber security standpoint, we're pretty secure right now.
So I think we're comfortable with that.
Anything else, Fred?
And I have one other question I'd like to add or ask.
In the right up, I saw it also talked about say like a general structure for like an executive committee and things.
I'm assuming that's also to be determined.
Yeah, so I think the idea behind this is for the.
For the municipalities get together and kind of push out and into governmental agreement and how the this group would operate and then ultimately are peeing and then putting together those plans, right?
And if if it goes into full implementation, yeah, then there would be a governing body that have a representative representative from each municipality sitting on that with the potential of maybe even hiring somebody to be the lead that can go out and be proactive for us.
So as cyber security threats or other new amenities come available for municipalities, they could be the one to bring it back to that governing body.
And then we can roll it back to our prospective boards and things of that nature.
Okay.
So what I'm hearing, there's still quite a bit of work.
If any of the trustees or really anybody in the public want to provide comment, should I direct it maybe to John or you build or.
Yeah, either of us is fine.
And that's, that's exactly right. I mean, we're at the very beginning stages of this. It's going to take a while to put this together.
If you can imagine just two communities trying to get put together in a governmental agreement, you can imagine what it's going to take for five or six different communities.
And what else we may have more that want to join as we go here.
I'm glad it took all we had us and want to keep kind of started and then build brought in to others and I don't know.
I don't know if it was through the Wisconsin municipal manager association or city county manager association or what, but I don't know if we had three or four more column into interest rights.
So this continues to grow, we could get more involved. So if we can get started and have a plan, it makes it easier for us to have others adopted because we can say this is how we're operating and they can choose whether to become apart.
So, yeah, and I'd say that's my main comment is to make sure it can grow because I personally think it will continue to grow.
So, who knows, I guess.
So, back to anybody willing to make a motion or further discussion.
Yeah, motion to approve resolution 2026, 013.
Second.
Motion by Brad seconded by Alicia.
Any further discussion.
Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion please signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed.
Motion passes five zero.
Item 8.5 is resolution 2026, 014, a resolution authorizing the village administrator to execute a conflict of interest waiver to allow.
To represent the village regarding the intergovernmental agreement for technology services.
Bill, you want to open this?
Yeah, I can kick us off on this. Oh, as we just talked about the intergovernmental agreement.
And so, as we negotiate through this, we want to make sure that we clear his conflict in representing the village.
My understanding and talking with him that the costs associated associated with with negotiating this would like to be split between the community.
Except for specialties or special services rendered specific to to that particular community.
This is not different from challenges in other communities. I can tell you that there are other communities within the consortium itself that may have attorneys from the same law firms.
And so we don't expect that this will be a large issue primarily because the staff are going to be negotiating mostly the terms and we be using them legal for review to make sure that we're meeting standards and requirements.
Anything else you want to add?
I want to keep in mind I have the same lawyer so they'll be looking.
Not, not at all, but the same offer. So they'll need a waiver between those two communities also.
Thank you. Thank you, Bill.
We do have two people wishing to speak under public appearances.
First one is Rebecca Witherspoon followed by Bernard Cox said.
Night, thank Rebecca. This is three minutes.
Yeah, well, I won't be taking three. Okay.
Good evening.
Trustees, my name is Rebecca Witherspoon. My address is on my parents form tonight.
I respectfully urge this board to vote no on resolution 2026, 014.
This resolution asks us to weigh the conflict of interest so that our village attorney and his law firm may simultaneously represent the forest and the village of McFarland and negotiating an intergovernmental agreement for shared it services.
Even if the likelihood of direct conflict is described as remote and the very purpose of conflict interest rules is to protect the public when negotiations involve potentially competing interest.
Under Wisconsin statutes municipalities enter into cooperative agreements that often involve financial commitments allocation of risk.
Governance structure service levels termination provisions and long term obligations. These are not minor administrative matters.
They are substantive negotiations that can materially affect taxpayers.
When two municipalities sit at the table their interests are not automatically identical issues such as cost sharing formulas liability exposure staffing control technology standards and exit clauses can create real tension.
Our village deserves council whose sole fiduciary duty is two to forest not divided loyalty, not potential withdrawal mid negotiation of a conflict arises and not advice constrained by another client at the same table.
The resolution suggests cost savings justify the waiver, but the potential cost of compromise negotiation leverage or the disruption of having council withdrawal at a critical stage.
Could far exceed any short term savings independence and legal representation is not a luxury. It is a safeguard.
This board has at times grown comfortable waving conflicts, but routine waivers erode public trust.
When important negotiations are occurring our residents should know unequivocally that our village attorney represents one client to forest.
When we collaborate with the neighboring communities without compromising ethical boundaries, we can hire separate council for this agreement while continuing our longstanding relationship in other matters.
That is a reasonable and prudent path for these reasons I urge you to vote no on resolution 2026.
Thank you.
Thank you, Rebecca for an hour.
My name is Brock Cox and I live in the nine liberty drive and divorce.
Good evening. I'm speaking to write an opposition to waving the identified conflict of interest public office carries a fiduciary duty to taxpayers.
Under Wisconsin ethnic statues, particularly Wisconsin statute in 1959 public officials are expected to not only avoid actual conflicts, but also the appearance of a divisional loyalty.
The board waves a conflict rather than a recusal. It risk undermining public trust, potentially obtaining the entire decision, even if the action is technically permissible.
The appearance of in variety can just be damaging as actual violations.
The proper safeguarding situations like this is full disclosure recusal that protects the individual members. It protects integrity of the board and it protects taxpayers from the avoidable legal challenges.
Waving conflict sets a precedent.
It signals the ethical safeguards and flexible when they should be firm.
The public expects decisions made without even the perception of personal influence.
I want to add a supplement to the previous resolution just adopted because there's a growing trend by public officials, okay, to shield themselves from public accountability by creating public and intergovernmental agreements and putting unelected,
unaccountable people in between the elected officials, those that we pay and those that are making the decisions for the board and for our community.
Village has traditionally followed this continuing to engage in paying dues for many different public interest groups that basically act as a shield,
and almost offense to public accountability versus public officials.
This is just one more layer in between.
When you're talking about hiring the same lawyer, law firm, whatever the case be, even the appearance.
Having met a government employee for 30 years, I can assure you that's been my rule of thumb from day one.
Does it have to be valid?
The appearance is enough to warrant non-disclosure, non-acceptance of a waiver.
I emphasize this board seriously thinking that there's some kind of exceptional extraordinary reason to give great a waiver.
Do not grant this waiver.
Thank you very much.
Have a good evening.
Thank you.
Good.
So next item is the discussion and possible action.
Can I go back to the last bit that you said over there, Bill?
The firm we know is connected with DeForest and McFarland.
But then what did you say after that?
Is it connected with?
Did you say want a key in something or?
What I said was that writer White is in Evans, represents the village of DeForest and the village of McFarland.
There's a similar situation within the consortium group, whereby the village of Wanna Key and the city of Verona have lawyers from the same offer.
Thank you.
Same lawyer.
But not this firm.
Thank you.
I have a question.
Lisa.
So.
So, if so, then likelihood, I guess it says that a scenario would come up that we would be in a conflict.
Do we have the right to just get separate counsel?
Like, do we have that option?
And then really the secondary to that is so if there's already two municipalities that already share the same lawyer.
I mean, how many lawyers are there that represent municipalities where you are always going to be in that conflict?
You know, is that right?
Because two of them already represent.
So if you drop out and then you're represented by someone else, you're still in a conflict.
So.
You know.
Well, I'll get back to the.
I don't know if there's a.
I don't remember it, but.
You absolutely do have the right to terminate the joint representation at any time you want.
I also want to make clear that.
It will not break my heart if you both know on this resolution.
I'm well beyond retirement age and the hardest part of my job these days is getting time off.
So I'm not, I'm not looking for more work.
The concern is in part that there are very few municipal lawyers practicing in the area at all anymore.
Everybody's got conflicts coming up all the time.
When I first started out, I made it a rule that I don't, I wouldn't represent any two adjacent municipalities just because there was a likelihood that at some point there would be a conflict.
I can't do that anymore.
I've had people begging me because everybody else has a conflict and if they find somebody who doesn't have a conflict, they don't have any options.
You don't need necessarily a municipal lawyer to do this.
You can, you know, there are business lawyers that can can deal with contracts.
The, the only thing that I think you lose is efficiency and cost.
You're, right now, the rates that I charge the village are about half of what a typical lawyer would charge you if they stepped into this, this case.
And instead of paying half because you're splitting it with McFarland, you'll pay 100%.
So it basically, it'll probably cost you about three or four times more to, to use separate lawyers.
That shouldn't be the only consideration and I'm not suggesting that it, that it should be.
But, you know, the way I see this and I've been involved in a lot of negotiations with these kind of agreements.
Most of the work, most of the negotiation is done by the staff.
The lawyers are basically there to make sure that the agreement says what their clients think it says.
So I'm not going to be negotiating a cost sharing deal between McFarland and, and the forest.
Bill and Matt Chanky will do that.
They'll tell me what goes in the agreement.
So I don't see the significant potential for conflict.
I can't say it wouldn't, wouldn't arise.
And if it did, I would certainly identify that and basically say, either you guys work it out or I'm out of here.
I can't help resolve that type of an issue.
So yes, there is the potential that somewhere down the road, you would have to start over with a new lawyer coming in and taking over.
What I add to that, you know, upon.
Creating the draft and as we negotiate through just like with any other intergovernmental agreements or development agreements, we will check in with the village board.
And so you will see that draft as we work through it and be able to negotiate it has with any development agreements or intergovernmental agreements whenever we come across a policy issue.
It comes to the board so that we can get direction and negotiation.
So there's, it's not, it's not any different here.
Again, we see this as an opportunity to secure IT services going into the future.
And at the end of the day, it's solely the village board decision of whether now we move forward on this project or whether we go out for different legal representation.
Again, we believe that this is the most efficient, most effective way. And that's why we proposed it in this fashion.
Anybody else?
I hear the concerns and understand where people are coming from.
I think because of the cost benefit analysis on this and the fact that our staff are going to be.
Doing the majority of the negotiating, not our council that I don't have a.
A problem.
With this at all.
Thank you, Brad.
I don't have a problem with that. I think Mr. Verter has proved that he's a man of integrity. I think his firm is a.
Good firm. I don't think he's going to put his law, I think, in danger over this. And as was pointed out, it's going to be the staff that's going to be doing the bargaining.
It's kind of like getting the words doing your own paperwork and taking it to the attorney and saying, how's this look?
Which is what I did.
So he's just there for the legal technicalities. I have no issue with that.
Thank you, Colleen.
I just wanted to echo what Brad had said.
And I agree also with what Colleen is saying.
So let's split it.
Make a motion to approve resolution.
Two, zero, two, six, stash.
One, four.
Second.
By Alicia, second by Colleen.
All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.
Any opposed?
Motion passes five, zero.
Thank you.
Item number eight point six is resolution twenty twenty six dash is zero.
One six resolution accepting the lowest qualified bids and awarding the contract resurfacing of Baki drive.
Asset Street, Stokely Drive, Seminole Way and North Cleveland Avenue.
Judd and Greg.
This presentation.
Yeah, so I'll take this one.
The resurfacing projects that were went out for bid.
The memo was in the packet.
I can go over the roads here.
Which were some of the way Baki drive.
Bass Street, Stokely and North Cleveland.
Overall, came under our budget six hundred by six hundred and eighty thousand dollars.
Getting a pretty good bang for our buck here.
You guys have any questions?
I got distracted.
Can you say that again?
We're under budget by six hundred and eighty thousand roughly.
Great.
So no public appearances.
So discussion and passable action.
Anybody make a motion to approve twenty twenty six dash zero and five second.
Wait, wait, wait, zero one six second.
Motion by Colleen seconded by Jan.
Any discussions?
All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Any opposed?
Motion passes five zero.
Congratulations on making budget on that one.
Item eight point seven resolution twenty twenty six dash zero one five.
Resolution accepting the lowest qualified bid and awarding.
The contract for reconstruction of acre parkway.
Judd and Greg.
Yep.
So acre park we were resurfacing from Main Street back towards seminal.
We had extended it from old Indian to seminal because it made more sense after we look back.
As we went through the project, it actually made sense to go just a little bit further to get to a additional sewer manhole that we had just a little bit beyond seminal.
So it it's slightly higher than we had in our OPC.
And we're also projecting suggesting that we might add and do the alternate, which is the base separator, which we had talked about.
We've not heard back from the county yet on the grant, we did apply for the grant.
I feel it's fairly, I think fairly good.
We should be in a good seat for that.
But by adding this, this, that base separator and the cost went up to an additional twenty three thousand dollars. I think it was.
Twenty four.
Twenty three five.
So that cost is, I think, well worth it for what we're going to be saving from putting into the river and ultimately into the chain of lakes.
So again, I think we felt like the board had generally supported that initiative anyways, as we discussed it initially, we brought it forward.
So the, the one with the, with the parent low bid was Olson tune OT site incorporated.
It was pretty close. I think it's like a seven hundred fifty dollar difference between them and the second lowest bidder.
By using adding in that alternate.
So with this approval, that would give us the authority to go forward and start that project when their timing is ready for Wilson to commence.
Right.
So that alternate is in, in this is ready.
And then if we got the grant, they would just lessen the amount.
Yep.
Thank you, Brad. And I should have noted nobody was wishing us a peer under this item.
Any other discussion?
I have one thing I want to bring up because you just mentioned how we don't know about the grant yet.
And what I noticed, if we don't do the separator, the low bid actually changes the little bidder.
So I assume and we're going to do the separator regardless.
That's our recommendation. That's what's the resolution states is to do it, including the alternate.
Should you choose not to, if this fails tonight, we'll be back at the next meeting because we have some time constraints to get the bids accepted.
So we would have to adjust and take the alternate out and then we would be pivoting to the second lowest bidder, which was Northwestern stone LLC.
So it was very close bid regardless, but again, with the alternate.
And adding that in our recommendation, because of what we felt like from the boards direction, when we brought forward adding is an alternate was to do this.
Makes sense. That was our recommendation. So.
Okay.
So a bit of a follow up. Do we have to select the lowest bid? And I guess I bring that up as I just want to make sure you're comfortable with the bidders or the low bidder, the second one.
We have to, we have to take the lowest bid unless, according to my understanding, and I would, I guess I defer to our esteemed lawyer, but unless I have compelling reasons by which we can disallow a bid.
That's known to the village of divorce specifically, then we can, we can choose the next one. If that was the case, we've had great success with all city site, I will say on that.
So the doubt, this is just strictly based on the low. Okay. I guess I'm.
Let's say all you want to say thing. I'm comfortable with that. I just had never heard of the OST, the little bidder. So if you're views done, I'm good.
I was just going to say, Judd has it correct. You have to award the contract to the lowest qualified bidder. So you look at the price. And if that lowest price is a qualified bidder, then you have to accept that contract.
Thank you.
Olson tune, just as an FY, they did cake parkway, the extension of cake parkway. And then they were a sub with tri county and the highway beat projects.
They didn't pay work on both of those things. So we have no issue with them. Thank you.
Further discussion or action.
Motion to approve 2026.
015.
Second.
Motion by Brad. Seconded by Colleen. Any further discussion?
Seeing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed.
Motion passes 5 0.
Item 8.8 resolution 2026.
017 resolution accepting the lowest qualified bid and awarding the contract for relocation of water main and until road.
Yeah, so I can.
We got the bid back.
Recently, and we're over a little bit by 17,000.
Let's cite work and engineering and contingency.
This is due to a bridge reconstruction project that Donna Burke is going through this year.
So we have to move our water main to the west a little bit so it gets out of the bridge developments.
That's what this project's about.
And all T site is the little bit on this project as well.
Thank you, Greg.
Nobody wishing to appear. So discussion and possible action.
Motion to approve 2026 17.
Second.
Motion by Jan seconded by Alicia. Any discussion?
Seeing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Motion passes.
5 0.
And by the motion that we took things out of order, we are now on item number nine general appearances.
And we do have a few people wishing to speak.
I have three registered.
Earth. It looks like Chris McDonald.
Then Tricia Belkey.
And then Cass Sommerfeld.
So Chris, please.
And I believe again, this is three minutes.
Thank you for doing this before.
Once or twice.
So good evening. My name is Chris McDonald. I live at 4000 long fellow court in the village of Windsor.
Tonight, first, I just wanted to say thank you to all the trustees in the previous meeting that voted to make a motion to rescind the resolution to remove Florida last year.
I'm sure that was a difficult step. And no matter which way you vote, you're going to make somebody unhappy. So thank you for taking that tough vote.
I just wanted to clarify a couple of things that I talked about at the last meeting and I've emailed the board a couple of times on DNR flexibility.
I talked to the planning engineer and then actually the section chief at DNR for safe drinking water.
And they have both said that from their standpoint, from regulations, they will allow the village to return to the previous state before Florida was removed.
So that would be wells two, three and four.
You could install dosing pumps, tanks, whatever, Judd and Greg tell you you need and reimplement fluoride as soon as possible.
They do have the expectation that you will bring up well six at some point, but they're going to allow you to phase those in.
So it is very important that you don't need to lay any bricks before you flip the switch again and turn forward back on from the DNR standpoint.
There may be other good reasons that you wait.
Also from the DHS, I've talked to Carrie and Abby, who administers the DHS grants now and they have said they will allow you to apply for that money, even if you're doing it phased as well.
So there's some verbiage in the grant application that says, you know, thou shall be at 0.7 milligrams per liter.
They are very accepting of you doing a phase approach and it was actually their recommendation that the board apply for a grant to bring up wells two, three and four.
And then come back later when you start doing brickwork and get some more money for well six.
So I just wanted to clarify those.
And then lastly, I had mentioned at the last meeting that there were some subsidized loans from the DNR.
It's called the Clean Water Fund.
You guys might be familiar with that, but I've talked to another trustee and a neighboring municipality and they said, you know, subsidized loans, so below market rate loans.
I think they're like 55% market rate, where you could get 20 year loans to finance infrastructure work. Sounds like you guys had some good plans to pay for this work, but just know that that is out there available and underutilized.
So there's plenty of money available there for the Clean Water Fund.
I'm going to run out of time.
So I know, you know, I've talked to Bill a little bit and it's unfortunate that we've missed out on two grounds of these DHS grants.
But I know and Bill has educated me that these things take time and they're going to move slow.
And re-implementation is going to be at the speed of government, which is fine.
I understand when you approve putting Florida back in the water.
I just have a request that given the history of this topic, you create an engaged of course site with a timeline and milestone so that the community can have visibility to that.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chris.
And Rhonda, I believe you're speaking for Tricia.
Yes, I had to leave, but I think you have her address file.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to forest is not a struggling highway exit town looking for an economic lifeline.
We are a fast growing suburban community of more than 12,000 residents.
We've grown over 13% since 2020.
Our median household income exceeds 100,000.
Our median age is around 39.
We are a family centered home ownership driven village known for our schools, parks and quality of life.
We are also part of the greater Madison Metro Metro area.
That context matters.
A buckies is not a typical gas station.
These facilities are 50,000 to 75,000 square feet operate 24 hours a day and include more than 100 fuel pumps.
They function as regional traffic destinations.
The question before us is not simply whether buckies would generate tax revenue.
It would.
The real question is whether that revenue meaningfully changes our financial trajectory or whether it is incremental in a community that is already stable and growing.
Traffic is likely the central issue.
The forest is commuter heavy with many residents traveling daily toward Madison.
We already experienced peak hour congestion at key intersections.
Adding a high volume regional travel center could significantly increase intersection strain.
Weekend congestion semi traffic truck semi truck traffic and potential conflicts with school routes and residential neighborhoods.
Most importantly, it could negatively impact our small businesses such as Allen box.
This is also a question of identity.
The forest has built this reputation as a family oriented residential community.
Buckies is bright high intensity 24 hour destination retail.
That may be appropriate in some areas, but we need to ask whether it aligns with our comprehensive plan and long term vision.
In a homeownership heavy community like ours concerns about noise light pollution truck traffic safety perception and long term property values are legitimate.
Before any approval, I urge the village to require an independent fiscal analysis and independent traffic study.
Clear developer funded infrastructure commitments and strict lighting and noise mitigation standards.
Growth is inevitable, but we have the privilege of choosing growth at reinforces who we are.
The question isn't whether we can approve this.
It's whether we should and whether it reflects the divorce we want in 10, 20 or 30 years.
And if it does come here, it needs to not have any taxpayer funding.
Slow down the growth already and stop making residents pay for it literally and figuratively.
Additionally, has there been any engagement with residents, including hearings and transparent data.
Also, no one I spoke with heard this was going on going to be on tonight's agenda until they saw it in our no data center.
It's Facebook.
Because I'm Morgan Roth brought it to our attention.
This is a fundamental and systematic problem with the forest leadership.
I feel like a broken record.
When is the forest going to learn the meaning of transparency.
Thank you.
Thank you, Rhonda.
Yes.
Whenever you're ready, Cass is please state your name and when disability.
All right.
My name is Cassandra.
Summer felled up to forest and I'm opposed to Bucky's.
Several reasons, including water and air pollution.
For starters, this is the Badger state, home of Bucky the Badger, not Bucky the Beaver.
I know the village received a grant for part of the cost, but what about the other three to four million?
Where is that going to come from?
Not to mention, it will make it an absolute nightmare for driving in that area, having to contend with thousands more cars.
With no real benefit to the residents.
In addition, this seems like a big backstab to quick trip.
Adding a giant competitor is a slap in the face with everything they do and give in sponsor for the forest.
I know a big selling point is that it will bring revenue by having people spend money in town.
I don't see how it would bring people into the forest or even on the east side of 94.
Because Bucky's pushes a self contained one stop shop idea.
They fill their gigantic stores with so much stuff so people don't feel the need to shop anywhere else in town.
Yet again, it seems staff is trying to push something residents don't want.
Residents across the nation are even opposing these mega gas stations.
I read about community opposition in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, Stafford, Virginia,
home Lake Colorado, Monument, Colorado, Huber Heights, Ohio, Monroe County, Georgia,
Mubbin, North Carolina, Orange County, North Carolina, to name a few.
Oak Creek residents sued the city to try and stop Bucky's due to illegal zoning.
It went against the comprehensive plan and only the owner of the property was going to benefit.
Several hundred citizens and the older men for the district objected to Bucky's.
The Bucky's expansion has provoked concerns about the loss of permeable surfaces near sensitive watersheds,
the air pollution and traffic congestion associated with a hundred gas pumps,
the dozens of underground storage containers and tanks full of carcinogenic toxins that can eventually leak.
The company's 24-7 water use and waste production.
In North Carolina, the broad consensus was Bucky's is not for us.
It's for tourists, people from elsewhere to flush endless toilets and pump endless gas.
Near Palmer Lake, Colorado, about 40 miles south of Denver,
plans for Bucky's stalled amid mounting opposition from residents and legal challenges.
Bucky's proposal quickly ignited a heated debate among residents and ultimately led to resignations of several Palmer Lake officials.
The community pushed back included concerns about water usage, environmental impacts and traffic concerns.
The town planning commission even recommended against the plan for the travel center.
Residents are concerned about the potential increase in traffic, water consumption and environmental damage to their town.
I had a little bit more, but I know I'm out of time, so thank you so much.
Thank you.
So that is everybody that is wishing to speak under public appearances.
So item now we are now back on the agenda at item 8.9.
In this item is deliberating terms for agreements between the village of DeForest, Wisconsin Department of Transportation and Bucky's LTD
for a proposed reconstruction project at the Interstate 39, 1994 and County Trunk Highway V.
The village board may convene into closed session as authorized by Wisconsin statute 1985,
Prince and C1E for the purpose of deliberating or negotiating the purchasing of public properties,
investing a public funds or conducting other specified business whenever competitive or bargaining reasons require a closed session.
The village board may reconvene in the open session and further discuss or take action on the subject matter discussed in the closed session.
And I have this as Bill starting off and Bill, can you just clarify, I guess, that we can have discussion and then at some point,
if it needs to get to the deliberation, then we take an action to go on the closed. Is that correct?
Yeah, that's correct. So the exemption under say law allows for the board to go into closed session to discuss the particular terms
and negotiating the contract. And so primarily this for this issue at this evening's meeting is the financial terms,
so with the state of the Department of Transportation, which would be an upstream agreement and then a potential agreement with Bucky's,
which would be a downstream agreement. And I can provide a background and then what's transpired so far since 2023,
and why we are looking at two different agreements and set out one single agreement.
So Bucky's first proposed a project in the village of the forest in 2023.
This is at the northwest quadrant of highway or interested in 39, 1994 and highway B,
County Highway V. This area is identified as the Northern Interstate corridor in our comprehensive plan.
And as part of that plan indicates growth area for commercial industrial and also residential as part of that.
So in 2023 when Bucky's came to the village, they had conducted an initial traffic impact analysis is required by the village
or any high impact or anticipate a high traffic impact areas or development.
And at that point, Bucky's found that for that interchange to work, it would need to be reconstructed into a diversion diamond or section.
For those that don't know what a diversion diamond is, it provides a free flow left turn.
So it's where you actually shift to the left as you're crossing the intersection and then in your left in order to avoid end to end traffic collision or the turning motion collisions.
The estimate at that time is determined through that TIA and the initial design was approximately $15.1 million.
The village then received a proposal from Bucky's that offered for Bucky's to pay for the improvements of the intersection and that they would lead improvement construction with the village reimbursing.
Bucky is at the access. So Bucky's was willing to pay up to the 53% which equated about $8.1 million.
They asked that the village or other entities cost share in that road work because the road and the interchange would impact much more than just Bucky's themselves.
As part of the Northern Interstate corridor planning and anticipation of growth in that area, we had our engineer, Samara Becker, calculate what the potential traffic impacts of that area would be coming from both industrial and commercial growth as anticipated at the time.
So once the village found out of the cost of that and understanding the desire to not put any of that cost on the taxpayers, the general taxpayers, we paused at that point and staff was instructed or directed to go out and see if we can find alternative funding sources from other agencies.
And we did that. So the two efforts that we, well, multiple efforts, but the majority of the effort was spent at the state level because of the impact to the interchange and understanding that any improvements that come from that would be influenced by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.
We pursued a budget amendment or we pursued funding to be included in the Wisconsin state budget that was included. So there's a $4 million grant through Department of Transportation.
We also pursued legislation so that we could expand our tax income and district boundary tax income and district number nine to have the boundary include Bucky's so that we could capture the tax revenues from Bucky's to pay for our help pay for that infrastructure.
That legislation is pending. So it did pass on the assembly side. It has not made it out of committee on the Senate side.
We also restart to Dane County because it's County Highway and we did not receive any funding assistance from from Dane County, although they were definitely interested in the project.
And then, you know, we're consistently looking for other opportunities, particularly whether they're impact fees or assessments or development fees from other projects within that area that may contribute to that section of highway.
So currently where we are as proposed and since we are, we received a grant award from the Department of Transportation.
We've been informed that although it is a village will be, the interchange would likely be a village project that DOT would likely let the project and be in control of construction.
That's the reason for the state municipal agreement as with a lot of joint projects on highways controlled by DOT.
There is also a in the memo, it's $500,000 federal credit as part of the interstate corridor project that recently went through the corridor study.
This project is from, I believe, the 30 split up to, I believe, Boston, Wisconsin.
The interchange had a certain budget in there.
And that was $500,000. That's not increased. I just received an email the other day that that is now $900,000 federal credit from that program.
And so we have $4.9 million in contribution from the state and federal.
As I said, as part of the initial discussion or proposal from Bucky's, they at that time, they were willing to have a private investment of $8.1 million.
And so there is a gap to be filled as part of the corridor planning.
We anticipated some improvements on County Highway V.
It's on 2023.
When we amended the tit plan at that point, we did add $1.89 million in the tax income and district budget.
Now, it provides opportunity. It doesn't, it doesn't require an obligation to utilize funding from the tax income and district for the project. So just a reminder that within the tax coming district.
Generally, the way that the tax income and district works is that when it was created, it pauses the revenues at the base level.
And then any new development which creates additional revenue is required to be spent within that particular district.
And so without the development, there would be no increment thus.
No, and without development and only for that infrastructure.
That's generally how that works.
Happy to answer any questions in regards to history process.
If on the project, just a reminder that the item and for subject of discussion this evening is the interchange itself.
We need to be able to look at this although they're related, the interchange and the Bucky's site project.
The process for approving the Bucky's itself, the development itself on site.
Any offsite improvements that Bucky's would take off on separately from this project is a different process altogether.
And that in itself will have its, if, if they choose to move forward with the project would have to be required to resubmit their information.
And we would do that due diligence accordingly.
Yes, a couple of questions.
This property is currently in the forest or that is correct.
Okay. And it has it been to the planning commission at all through the beginning of the process or would it.
Yeah, in 2023, the project was proposed when the project was proposed.
It did go through a CUP conditional use permit process.
I believe there has required by the conditional use permit process.
There was a public hearing staff at that time, along with for consultants.
Did the due diligence called out to other communities took a look at different types of impacts and I believe the CUP was approved at that time by the planning and zoning commission.
By ordinance are continuing to use permits have a timeframe of one year.
If construction hasn't started on it within a year that conditional use permit actually expires.
All of the information regarding the history videos of the interaction, the proposal, the presentation,
planning and zoning commission discussion,
village board discussion at the time.
It's all on engaged the forest and including some frequently asked questions.
So can I piggyback also on Brad's.
I just want to clarify or there is the zoning that they need in place as a matter that they needed the CUP.
Correct.
You know, I guess I know we're talking about the interchange.
So I'm, I'm wondering if there is any interconnection or do you have a feeling of fill that they're waiting to find this out before.
Yeah, so this is, you know.
So your first question, the zoning, I believe is in place on the parcel zone as business commercial.
The CUP conditional use permit is due to the size of the development itself.
And Randy, correct me if I'm wrong here.
So before, as with any project, I think the first question that a developer asked what is needed for the project and.
How does he have finance, right?
In this, in this instance, Bucky's is not asking for any assistance from the village for the site improvements.
It's, uh, it's not those in regards to interchange that they're seeking assistance for.
Because it's not only them that's using the interchange.
Plus any of the growth that's that we anticipate will be there.
And since that time in 2023, we've seen growth in the area.
We've seen growth on the residential side.
We've also seen growth on the industrial side.
In fact, just recently the planning and zoning commission approved.
About 96 acres in zoning for a industrial business park to Southwest.
Of the location of that interchange.
Thank you.
Brad, did you have anything else?
Any other.
Trustees.
I'm just trying to gather my thoughts here.
I was trying to do the math, first of all, regarding.
The project's going to be $15 million.
Bucky's is going to.
Give 8.1 last we heard.
Then we have 4.5 million.
In a grant from.
Department of transportation.
Yeah, so let me go over those numbers because they continue to continue to change.
So the initial.
Proposal.
Suggested a total cost of 15.1 million dollars.
As you can see in the green in the memo.
After we received the grant.
We asked that deal to take a look and double check that costs.
Compared to recent.
St. Lex contracts, right?
Gather the cost from those, those contracts.
Provide us your estimate of what that is.
That is 16.9 million.
So that's, so that's increased since 2023.
Which I guess was not expected.
It's not a surprise because we've seen costs and materials increase.
So the private contribution.
As proposed is 8.1 million.
The state grant, which is the coming through the L.R.I.P. program, local roads improvement program.
Is 4 million.
There is a federal credit.
That is actually increased to 900,000.
So it's not 500,000 at this person.
And then we have a 10 nine.
Budgeted contribution towards the highway.
The.
Project.
Okay.
So this recommendation sheet.
This just got put into our packet, right?
Yeah, because it wasn't in there when I downloaded my things.
So it was, yeah, it was added late.
Okay.
So now I'm getting caught up.
I didn't see this little chart.
So I get all that.
So that's helpful.
But then I go back to, we're talking about this because of the interchange.
And I know it keeps being said that we've got other.
Businesses that are going to be using this and.
Just our regular own local other local traffic.
But would we really need this diamond interchange and something so.
Big and dramatic.
If we weren't having the buckies, which is predicting in their.
Words and in their paperwork, 4000 to 8000 cars a day.
To me, that's, that's.
Seems insane.
I can't imagine that our other businesses are going to produce anything near that.
Yeah.
So definitely without buckies.
Likely the interchange doesn't need to get reduck.
To a divergent diamond interchange.
Now we've done, you know, we've done the studies.
We take, taking a look at the age of the infrastructure currently.
We know that that that.
Well, it's going to need to be redone at some point.
Whether that's a.
Dane County cost.
Or whether that's a village cost.
Now.
With all buckies, if that, if that quarter continues to grow and we see another.
Large traffic user come in.
We would require the same thing of that large traffic user.
A TIA at that point.
And any kind of improvements would be, you know, dealt with it negotiated at that point too.
Depending on what direction that goes board wants to go.
In regards to growth in that corner.
Isn't this only a village project right now.
Because of us wanting to bring buckies in.
Because we're talking about this is on highway V. And the interstate, which are not even our roads.
That's correct. We don't have the.
We don't have jurisdiction on those roads. So it is a village project because.
Only because of that.
Thank you.
Any other.
Questions, comments.
Question, I guess really for that area in the strategic plan, I mean, it is.
I think.
Slated for just.
High users, right? Like.
That corridor.
So when you look at the comprehensive plan, the northern interstate corridor.
Which is that interchange and along the interstate.
It's intended to be a high growth area.
Now the comprehensive plan doesn't necessarily get into what specific.
Types of businesses per se.
But we anticipate.
That because of the traffic.
That produces their.
Things that we've heard at the village one.
Likely would develop their considering the traffic loads.
Right. And so I think we've talked about even here at the village board.
The desire for a grocery store per se.
And so Alex and I have talked to a number of grocery stores.
But you know.
The demand is it there.
When you look at the calculus of what grocery stores want in the community.
So the question I think initially when we talked about this as part of.
The comprehensive plan and planning for a future growth of the village is.
What do we want.
Into for us to drive.
Some of those items that we desire.
Right.
And so.
You know.
When I was hired.
We had several different commercial areas.
Designated with throughout the community.
And we were struggling to recruit.
Businesses because quite frankly each of those sites are too green.
Too fresh.
And we still have that that issue today in fact we talked to a developer this morning.
Then.
Maybe pulling back had been considering a commercial development.
Maybe pulling back because they're a year or two years or three years away from.
Really meeting the numbers that their retail.
Studies required to develop.
And so the question is how do.
If that's the direction that we want to go.
How do we provide an environment.
To be able to recruit.
The type of businesses that we want here.
And so I think that's.
That's.
A policy question that needs to be answered.
And whether that's the still the direction that this board wants to go.
Because you know previous boards had set.
You know.
That agenda in that path.
And so I.
I mean.
It's a challenge.
Just that need to.
Additional quick things. So.
To your question about comprehensive plan.
How does that fit.
Future land use is definitely.
Commercial in nature, but I was just checking the zoning on GIS.
And it is a commercial district, but it's actually specifically a highway business.
Commercial district.
So it's oriented more towards that kind of development anyway.
And then also looking at the numbers that you've gotten the memo here on screen bill,
which maybe leads to.
The potential conversation of a negotiation.
The private contribution.
The potential conversation of a negotiation.
The private contribution, I think, was a percentage based.
So I think if that number is still percentage based, that should actually.
Conceivably be higher than 8.1.
And these numbers are kind of.
Foundation for you to have.
A discussion and set the terms.
Like I said, in 2023, a proposal was provided to the village.
We never responded to that.
We said pause.
We're going to see if there's other opportunities here.
Now that we've been through that process and we have a clear picture,
including the growth that's happened since 2023.
And potential impacts to that interchange.
I believe that we're at the point now where we can have.
A relevant discussion and be able to return terms back to.
Not only buckies, but the state as part of this discussion.
It's a continuation.
Of course, if you say stop.
You know, we don't want to have a buckies or a type of business.
We'll go in that direction too.
But.
Yeah, it's again, providing an opportunity for us to have that continue dialogue.
I'll just add some historical context.
So many, many years ago, we tried to get office research into the village
of the forest.
That's what all of our plans called for.
And there was zero success.
We'd had.
I mean, if you look at the conservancy place where the athletic complex is.
Most of that was designed to be office research.
Half of those homes by conservancy commons and all that back in there would not be
other homes that would have been office research had been followed with the
original plan started in 1999.
We tried for many years to put around.
Around pagan square hole and just had no luck doing such things, right?
And at some point, we kind of sat down and we didn't do a full strategic plan.
Like we do nowadays, but we said, what is it that we are?
And we realized that we're a transportation corridor, right?
We're on 90, 94, 51.
You're a few hours from Minneapolis, a few hours from Chicago, Milwaukee.
And there's a Walgreens distribution center.
There's these other distribution mechanisms that are in the area, right?
So it was designed to be a high transportation area that fits into this.
If you look along the interstate now going all the way down to McFarland,
all the way up to the forest, there's very few interstate spots left, right?
And we have those and that those are highly desired.
So intrusion access to the interstate is limited by DOT and the Federal Highway Commission.
So while Bucky's may be driving this, the Virgin Diamond, I would take a slightly different approach
and that regardless, there needs to be improvements to highway V as development continues to occur.
If you think the highway 19 and that interchange is access,
DOT is having to do some pretty grand sweeping designs to make that connection point
to the interstate at 19 function better, right?
It is slightly dysfunctional at this point.
That will only come up further here to highway V.
So for us to have an opportunity to put in the Virgin Diamond,
which the DOT is putting in throughout the state,
where we have such a contribution from a development that can help spur that
and the pressures that we've already, that Alex and Bill have done a good job in driving,
that tie into what we are as the village of the forest.
I think it will need to have something occur here,
and it may be as drastic as the Virgin Diamond even without a Pucky's.
Just because those function, if you've not driven through one, they're pretty slick.
They move traffic very efficiently through there,
and as that development corridor continues to grow,
we have an opportunity to get something built here that's not the full cost
on the village of the forest.
So I think just that's where we're at, right?
It's who the village has been for a number of years,
and that's where we've seen this growth coming to where we're a 65-35 community,
65% residential, 35% business, and that's unusual for community air size.
You usually only see that in major metropolitan cities.
So the village board in the past was pretty diligent in trying to make sure
that we had something that wasn't all on the backs of residents, right?
And we weren't just a sleeping bedroom community, right?
We actually have industry here that can help support and cover taxes.
And I want to add, I think there's been a lot of mention,
not even just this conversation, but the QTS discussion,
and about how much the village has grown,
and how we've been stewards and maintain that growth.
I think an important aspect that's being missed here
is that large infrastructure projects like this
usually does not get done without development interest, right?
We've seen that example most recently when you take a look at highway 51
and the interchange that was per way in Pepsi.
We knew for a long time that that was a bad interchange.
And we've addressed it with DOT.
The funding for that interchange came directly from development,
from quick trip and a forest yard.
That's how we were able to be able to put in those lights.
Now, again, there's an opportunity before the board.
And so that's why we're placing it here.
Again, this has been a discussion that we've had and been having since 2023.
Indication at that time was that the village was favorable to a project.
And that's why we put in the work.
And so again, this is an opportunity to continue that discussion.
If the narrative on growth and the narrative on development is changing,
it would be my recommendation that we look at the comprehensive plan again.
Because, you know, what the comprehensive plan says in regards to growth is
not necessarily aligned with potentially a vision that we're considering here.
Motion to go to closed session.
Second.
Some motion on the table, the goal and the closed session.
Is there any further discussion?
All those in favor going in the closed session. Oh, sorry.
Roll call.
Trustee chords.
Trustee little.
Trustee Simpson.
Trustee Stephanie Hagan-Hahn.
Trustee Williams.
Motion carries five zero.
Thank you all.
Thank you.
So I believe we are recording and we're back in session.
And that is conferring with the legal counsel regarding notices of claim under the American Disabilities Act and section 504 filed by Rebecca Witherspoon.
Do I need to read that paragraph again?
Okay.
How about this?
Can I read in 811 and only read that paragraph once?
So we are also going to take at the same time, 811, which is conferring with legal counsel regarding case number 2026 CV.
And both of those items, the village board may convene into closed session as authorized by Wisconsin statute, 1985, 1G,
conferring with legal counsel for the governing body with rendered oral and written advice concerning strategies to be adopted by the body with respect to litigation in which it is or is likely to become involved.
The village board may reconvene in open session and further discuss or take action on the subject matter discussed on the closed session.
Bill, you're listed under both of those items. Do you want to open them?
It's that their legal matters. There's no discussion on this. Just move to a call session.
Motion to move to closed session.
Second.
Roll call, please.
Sorry, guys. I didn't know that was going to happen that way.
Trustee cords.
Trustee little.
Trustee Simpson.
Trustee Stefan Hagenheim.
Trustee Williams.
Motion carries 5-0.
Have a good night and hope he had a good conversation.
Close the game.
Thank you.
Ready?
Okay.
Item 8.12, discussion of possible action regarding resolution 2026-18, resolution authorizing the
village administrator to execute a conflict of interest waiver to allow Stafford, Rosenbaum,
LLP to represent the village of the forest and penning litigation.
Bill, do you have anything you're listed?
I think you have everything in your packet that kind of explains the relationship that
is involved here.
It's a technical conflict and it's up to you whether you want to wait that.
Motion to approve resolution 2026-018.
Second.
Motion by Brad, seconded by Colleen.
Any further discussion or any discussion?
Seeing none, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Opposed?
Motion passes 5-0.
Item 10, 10.1 is a check registry.
I'd suggest if anybody has questions, please forward them on to Carol or Bill.
Item 11.
I guess I'm going to take my executive authority that I have tonight and skip the 11.1.
Ask if there's just, I guess I'll skip all of 11.
I don't have anything.
President's report, I don't have anything.
I don't know, Bill did you attend the thing?
County City's in village update?
Anything worth it there?
There have not been a meeting since the last update.
Any other business?
Item number 14.
Motion to adjourn.
Second.
Motion by Jan, seconded by Alicia.
All those in favor of adjournment, please signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Opposed?
We are adjourned at 915.
Item number 14.