You
here. The next item is Pledge of Allegiance. Please,
John, it's okay. First on the agenda is a presentation from
the tourism group. 2026 tourism review.
We have our own trolls. Let the clerk know that the tourism
people are bribing the board. There's an ask here somewhere.
Can I get one here? Hard by this troll. That is the world's smallest troll.
Thank you. All right, good evening everybody. You know, this is the best time of the year
to come up to the village board present what we got going on for the summer. Give you guys
a little feedback on what we had for last year. Kind of bringing it to the end a little bit.
So the big one that we've all been waiting for, we owe you to you the lineup this year
for our concert series of dates have been set. So we got to let you know who's playing
this year. So June 16th, Jay Mathis is a little bit of country for you.
July 7th is going to be dirty boogie. Kind of a cover ban for all sorts of stuff. July
28th, five-card stud, the returning from our first concert that we had this year to come
and join us. And then August 18th, Tripp and Billies is a date Matthew's tribute ban.
We anticipate probably some good crowds of those, so we hope to see everybody out there
for these. Turning out to be quite the events. Let's hope for nice weather. President DeGroote,
I have to say that I did wash my motorcycle yesterday, so I do apologize for the rain.
Makes perfect sounds. It does, doesn't it today? Okay. So then obviously
we're bringing Bluegrass concert back again, June 20th. That's a Saturday. Last year was
by far the hottest day of the year that we decided to have a concert. We learned from
that. We got, we're going to look at some different things in there and we're hoping
we're kind of resetting everything with Bluegrass this year and we'll go from there.
The last one that we have for this summer is Chalk the Walk. Again, that's our sidewalk
chalk event. That's going to be August 22nd. Looking to kind of start building our art
aspect of things coming up. So a couple of things that we've started
been doing this year, we will be doing a marketing, we are working with a marketing firm to start
marketing strategies within the village among pleasant starting next month. So we have hired
a firm that's going to start walking us through that strategies to start not only marketing
tourism but also the village among pleasant. We've also went into a analytics software
that we got a license for this year that's helping us kind of develop where people are
coming from, what our numbers are looking at like that to our concerts and stuff like that.
To give you an example, we can start pulling some of those data to kind of give us numbers
for our concerts. Giving you, for example, Dancing Queen, our last concert last year,
we took at the 7 p.m. mark. This data is being collected by cell phone data that is within the
geofence of the park. We had about 2,400 people. So you know our concerts are starting to get
there. We're seeing at least 1,000 to 1,200 people on average to our concerts this past year.
So we're hoping that those numbers stay going as what they have. Some of the other
software that this is giving us is also breaking down and we just pulled some of this data today
for some of our tourism reports and stuff that will be presented to the commission coming up.
But it's breaking down a little bit of what we're seeing from like visitor spending and
stuff like that for 2025. It broke it down in the two categories for people that were visiting us,
physically going into our businesses and visiting us at about roughly about 50 miles or so. And then
there was the visitor from 150 miles plus. So for a visitor coming in about 50 miles or so,
we're looking at that kind of spending at about 40.6 million dollars that's coming back into the
village. Either through restaurants or stuff like that. For people a little bit over 150
was 24.2 million. Give you an example from last year those are I'm sorry that was for 2025. 2024
saw about 32.5 million dollars coming back into our community. So what a great segue
that comes into to the next thing that we discussed here in Cowar earlier. Okay. So
as we explained to you earlier, we had the opportunity and seized it to commission the artist Thomas
Dambo to do one of his renderings of a troll in the village I'm all pleasant. So to kind of give
you a little bit of the back history of it. This idea wasn't fine. It was from some wonderful people
that is in our community. And I wanted to highlight them because it shows the importance of what our
community does to bring forth to us. Now, there's a little bit of a bias didn't I will say, but
you have these wonderful people in our community in our seats tonight. My parents, Tom and Bonnie
brought this idea and said, Hey, I think this is something one pleasant needs. I said, Yeah,
let me take a look at it. And then my wife came and said, Hey, I think we need to have this. I said,
you're right. And then I received the wonderful email from Bobby Schmidt, who's a friend of ours
and sits on our police fire commission says, Hey, right after Wabatoza developed our showcase,
there says, Hey, I think this is great from all pleasant. So, well, you can't say no to your mom
and dad, right? Let alone your wife and your friends. So let's do a little research into it.
So October, we went up to Wabatoza. Wabatoza currently has one of the trolls up there.
Mama Rosa, highly encouraged you guys to go up. They have a beautiful park that they
developed in and around in there met with their tourism people in October. We did a site visit.
And as we explained earlier, all of the funds that they used for that project for the troll itself
was tourism funds that the park the park development was on their plans to utilize
their tax base to develop this thing. So after we went to Wabatoza, we kind of looked and said,
okay, what is your impact? What are those numbers that you're looking at that you're seeing?
At that time, they were still getting a little bit more data, but she was able to provide the
data, which we provided you earlier, that from May 28th of 2025, until the end of March of this
year, they had 192,000 people that visited that park from 48 different states, including DC,
with an impact financially into the community of roughly 13.4 million dollars.
So, you know, we kind of looked and said, I think we can do that. So we brought it to the
Tourism Commission. Tourism Commission said, hey, this is a great idea. Let's do it. We allocated
the funds that we have for the Tourism Commission that we have generated through the room tax over
the years, and we did have some in the reserve or in our funds that we were able to utilize that.
So we presented, after the commission said, yes, we have a, we want to allocate those funds to it.
I worked with our fabulous team of communications that developed a presentation to the artist,
Thomas Dambo, to highlight the village of Mount Pleasant. Now, Sean, Ryan, he's in here somewhere,
at least, Ollie. She's, unfortunately, I hear tonight, and I sat down and developed what
Mount Pleasant is, what it looks like, what our park system is, what is our community all about,
and with them and their assistance, and we couldn't have done it without them,
we submitted our application, and they loved the concept, loved our community, and said, we're
coming. So with that being said, we are now on the verge of bringing in a Thomas Dambo Cho that we
can pretty much guarantee we'll have an impact within, not only Mount Pleasant,
but within Nursing County, that I think we'll be presently surprised. There's currently one
in La Vatosa, which is a, we'll use the second one in Wisconsin. There is several up into Detroit
Lakes, Minnesota, and then we are actually making a site visit on Thursday down to Clinton, Iowa,
where they have three that are being finished as we speak. We've spoken to both of those communities
of the impact that they had. Detroit Lakes, where they didn't keep as good records of their
anticipated crowds, but they were also looking at well over 100,000 people visiting within
probably their first year to that. And then we'll meet with the people in Clinton on Thursday to
talk a little bit more. This is Mount Pleasant's event. This is happening in Mount Pleasant,
but this is going to be Racine County. Our goal on this is to make sure that everybody's
included, because we're going to need supplies. We're going to need reclaimed wood. We're going
to need volunteers. This is going to be a project to who knows what is going to bring, but once
everything gets approved, we will be getting more information out to the trustees here, so you have
an understanding of what kind of materials that we will be looking for, but it will be reclaimed
wood, anything left over. Building supplies, stuff like that, we'll be working with more of them to
get that taken care of. So we got a busy year ahead of us. I think this is going to be really
an impact that we have making, again, Mount Pleasant a destination for not only day trippers, but
for people coming in outside of here. The aspect of Thomas Dambel, the influences that he has on
the recyclable aspects of nature and all that stuff is unbelievable. I highly, if you're on
Facebook, please look for some of their Facebook pages. We have people that are in the audience
today. Former interim chief Nitter has taken his family and gone through several places
throughout the country. People travel to do this. People travel to come into these communities
to see this. So it will not be unusual for us to see people from probably all over the world
coming into our community and also visiting Wabatosa. This will be a good partnership with Wabatosa
because if you're going to come to Wabatosa, you're going to come to Mount Pleasant. If you
go to Mount Pleasant, you're going to go to Wabatosa. So it's on the consent agenda tonight. We're
looking forward to being approved. We have better hotels than Wabatosa has, don't we? We do. You
know, our hotels are really starting to become top notch up here and we're going to be filling
those hotels. Jim, go ahead. Sure. I just want to make it clear for the record and for all the
people out there that are watching. This is not from the tax base. This is a tourism commission
money. So money comes from the room tax and it's meant to be spent in a way that puts beds and heads.
So you keep that going? Heads and beds. Heads and beds. Thank you. So to keep that cycle going. So
as I said earlier, this is probably really the first big project where I'm going,
this is truly going to accomplish that. And again, it's not the taxpayer dollar. It's
corralia we have from the tourism commission. Oh, I want to, one of the, he's Thomas Dambos
from Denmark. He is from Denmark. Yes. And so I think it's really interesting that
with our cringle history here in this area, how this ties in because we are a Danish community.
Well, we're an Italian community with some Danes in here. There's a lot of Danish people.
First and foremost Italian, but we have a few Danes too. That's what you meant to say.
You know, Thomas's trolls are all over the world. His goal is to try to get one in
every state of the United States. But if you get an opportunity to go to his website and take a
look at the map, they are speckled throughout the entire world. So this is, in essence,
putting Mount Pleasant on the international stage. Go ahead.
That's a good question. How does Wauwatosa know where all these people came from?
So the software, um, place where AI is a software analytic software that we have
entered into a, or a contract with them. What it does is it takes, um, cell phone data
and that you put in like a specific location, people that are coming in will, will register
their cell phone now. It's not like a big brother or anything. We don't know who you are. We don't
know. The only thing we know is that it tracks, um, where they're coming in from. So like there,
there are zip codes and stuff, but it's through cell phone data. So that's how they're getting
that accurate. So it's not, um, it's not, I would say made up. It is like physically,
these are registering showing showing that in the amount they spend is more some kind of a
formula that they, you know, has been created over time. Yep. Yeah. So we'll, we'll take as,
as we get closer to like starting to collect our data, we'll find out what the local tourism
thing is. Um, I think I did roughly right now an average person is, you know, if you're coming
here for the day, you could spend anywhere between 70 and $90 a day. If you're staying
in overnight, anywhere is between $116 and $220, and, you know, for your stay. Um, so what we'll do
is we'll take that, you know, those, those numbers, find out how many people came into a specific
location that you can multiply and get those numbers from that. Is that, uh, geofencing? Yep.
Okay. Yep. The kind of stuff you find in data centers.
Right. I just heard a story on the radio today, actually. Uh, go ahead.
Were you yawning? Yes, I have a question. So if mama Rosa is in Wauwatosa,
do we get the baby or the kid or do we have any input on who are tying? Because that'd be a
nice natural tie and you're going to want to see both. Yeah, I don't know. So the artist has,
obviously we have some input, but at the end of the day, he's the one that has those decisions,
but, you know, from what I've heard and especially speaking with his team, they're really easy to
work with. Um, and definitely look for everybody's input, but we will, when we're down there Thursday,
we'll have a really one on one idea of what, what we're getting into because, uh, we'll be able to
meet with our team and the Iowa team to discuss that more. And then is there going to be like a
big event unveiling? Well, of course. And can you do events around it? Like, could somebody rent
that space and have a party theme with that in it? Or is it only for public? No, it's only for
public. Yeah. So it would be placed within, you know, two places that we've designated with the team
to be determined later on when they come in there. It is open to the public. It's not restricted. It
won't be rented or anything like that. So there's going to be no admission fee. Nope. Okay.
I know that there's, um, well, based on your answer to Gina's question, you know, that we have
some input in it. And I know that there's a press release that's going to be coming out regarding
this. But at some point in time, putting out some kind of a doodle pull, you know, would be
interesting just to get the constituents thoughts on what they might want to see in a troll.
Yeah. And I know, and that's one of the things that we'll discuss when we go down there,
to understand like their visions and stuff like that. When we went up to Wabatosa, they were,
they walked the site and you'll see there's a video, if you go to discover Wabatosa,
they did a video on the fact that he was walking through their DPW lot, came across
old pole, old light poles that they took out and he goes, I want to use these make it work.
And they did. They refurbished them. They ran power to it and stuff. So, you know, he does have
a vision of what he's looking for with the input of what we have around here. So it's going to be
pretty exciting. Well, you've got a lot of constructions, materials left over from a lot of new
construction. I think so going on. Yeah. Believe me, every time I run, drive around the village,
you're looking going, hey, we could use that or, you know, we got that place there, stuff like that.
So we'll definitely be coming up with wish lists and stuff for everybody to get involved with.
The thing that really sticks in my head is what you mentioned about 48 states, you know, have
come and visited Wabatosa. And so, you know, clearly there's a national following and indeed
international. Correct. You know, so Peter, so there really are people that geek out about this
and, you know, we'll certainly visit us. Well, and they make a pilgrim out of it too. You know,
there's been, we've watched some of the things on Facebook that are like, hey, we're coming down
this way. Is there any trolls nearby or we're hitting this one today? We're hitting that one.
Talking with Minnesota, talking with Iowa, these are all plans that, you know, we want to see how
we can incorporate them in all the different states of how do we market from that standpoint of
go to Iowa, go to Wisconsin, go to Minnesota. It's all in that succession. So I think this is
this is going to be bigger than what we've ever imagined. It's the troll trail. The troll trail.
The bourbon trail. Correct. And honestly, Nancy, that's one of the things that was just coming up
in the conversations. The people in Minnesota and people in Iowa are very excited to have another
one coming in here. Yep. So since you did say 48 states, does that mean that we haven't had
any visitors from Alaska or Hawaii yet? Not yet, but we can get there. I think that should be our
goal. Yeah, it should be. It should. So that's a tourism and a nutshell for this year. We appreciate
everything that the not only the commission has done with this project and they need to be recognized
too. They've been very supportive with all the tourism, the aspects that we brought into the
village among pleasant, I think with this and with our marketing strategy, you're going to start
seeing some more things coming through. And we appreciate the support from the village board and
everybody too. Thank you, Matt. Great news. Good job. Okay, let's move on to public comment.
Members of the public are welcome to provide comments on any matter. Please fill out a
comment form and the president will recognize you. Use the microphone and state your name and
address for the public record. Comments are limited to three minutes.
Can we hear from Jim Kootz?
You know, the drill, sir, name and address for the record. Yes, sir. James Kootz, 6812,
Green Ridge Drive, Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin. I live on a cul-vis-ac. In 2019, we purchased
this land and we noticed that a cul-vis-ac was in our front yard. It was never on the registered
deed of Mount Pleasant decided to just take more road. I have pictures from 1965 till today and
the road is double itself. Now, a cul-vis-ac is 50-50 from center of road on both sides,
correct? Not a D pattern into my front yard, which every time I try to apply for a permit to do
something in my property, I have to pull off the back of my property because nobody even
a village has no clue where the lot line is in the front from the road in the Eastman whatsoever.
Then you guys sent a bill. Well, you didn't send a bill. You came to my house in a letter with an
attorney tell me that you were going to purchase the land. I said, it's not for sale for four grand.
I have that paperwork. Then you decided to tell me that it was going to be taken from me on the
randomment domain. Well, I got an attorney involved and then you guys decided to put the sewer project
on the other side of the road, the south side of Green Ridge Drive. And then when that was done,
I came back in here and asked what we could do to retrieve my front property. I was told,
well, we need that cul-vis-ac for the dump garbage trucks and everybody to turn around.
There's not another cul-vis-ac in Mount Pleasant like I have in my front yard. I've asked since
2019 of April to work nowhere. Now, you guys chose to put the sewer line on the south side of
the road. Here it is now two and a half years later and I still haven't had my front yard.
I want my front yard where I will remove the asphalt that's on that property of mine that I own
and I pay taxes on. You don't give me a tax credit. You did not give the other people a tax credit.
I want my yard back. We need to set up some kind of meeting that we can all sit down.
I can show you all the paperwork in another meeting. The last time we tried to get a meeting,
you said it was sewer. It's not sewer. It's my front yard. I want it back. It's a real simple.
Thank you for your comments. Thank you.
Anybody else sign up for public comment?
Go on. What's going twice? Okay. With that, we can end the public comment and we can go to
the consent agenda. Mr. President, I make a motion to approve the items on the consent agenda as
presented. I hear a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed?
So the consent agenda is approved.
So we have public meeting. Public hearing.
Public hearing for ordinance 2-2026, zoning map amendment for 36-49, late through Babinew, ZMA26-01,
zoning public hearing notice, ZMA. Well, that's the attachment. Okay.
Following a brief presentation by staff, I'll open the public hearing. If you wish to speak,
please fill out a public hearing form, which is on a table near the entrance. Once recognized,
speakers should come to the podium and identify themselves with their name and address. Please
speak clearly into the microphone. Speakers must direct all discussions towards the board.
I will not allow interchange between members of the audience and the petitioner. We request
that you not interfere with nor interject comments while another person has the floor.
This is to ensure respectful and orderly process. Please keep all comments on the particular
item before the board and at most five minutes. Finally, to ensure a focused and productive hearing,
please turn off or mute your electronic devices. Who's speaking towards us? Robin.
Yes, it's me. You guys get stuck with me for the next few months because Sam is out on
paternity leave with his new son. Don't get a big head over it. I definitely, you know,
just I have power. It's more like the extra phone calls and emails is what I have.
Let's say Robin. Yes, let's go. All right, so for ZMA,
2601, 3649, Lathrop Avenue, this is an application to amend the zoning
classification from RE, which is residential state to RL, low density residential.
The applicant wishes to construct 400 square foot outbuilding on his property,
which will increase the impervious surface percentage of the property from approximately
33% to 35%. Pour our code on Lathrop building regulations to limit on impervious surface in
the RE district is 25%. However, that limit was added to the code via ordinance in summer of 2025.
So not even a full year ago. So the existing structures are legal nonconforming. So that's
totally fine that this 33%. The limit in the RL zone is 50%. The mass plan indicates residential
for the property and the near bar parcels in the area are both RE and RL zoning. This sort of kind
of mean, yeah, those staff and recommend and the planned commission also recommended to approve
the ordinance to 26 to the village board. It was basically I was saying that this is a very
minor kind of improvement, but unfortunately, the only way to address it without seeking a variance
was to request a zoning change. This would have been no problem a month a year ago. So they have
to request the zoning change in order to do it. We're looking for ways to basically alleviate or
mitigate going over that limit, such as stormwater retention, without the need to have a public
hearing and zoning change for every time. So that is it. That's my presentation.
This would be the time for me to invite the public to speak. I have no reason to end up
having heard anything from the clerk. Anybody here wishing to speak on this particular item?
That hasn't signed up going once going twice. So they're being, you know, nobody wishing to speak
on that. I can close the public hearing. And is there a motion? Mr. President, I make a motion
to approve ordinance two dash 2026 for a zoning map amendment at 3649 Leithrop Avenue as presented.
Second. So the motioner and the seconder, since you both sit on the plan commission,
your thoughts? Right. Thank you, Mr. President. I think this is very typical of some older lots
in the community that we're larger to begin with. And so when we redid the zoning code, they ended
up with that RE designation on them, where they're in neighborhoods that are really,
if they were to be rezoned as a whole today, we'd look at the RL. When you look at the site plan,
obviously, they enjoy their property. They have sheds and their gardeners and the pool and so
forth. So they wanted to add an outbuilding, which seemed reasonable. And staff was able to use our
code to come up with a way that was amenable. I think the big thing is the big question we had
and Robin answered it was they're adding more impervious surface. So in an existing neighborhood,
we always have to be careful that they're not now sending more stormwater offsite than
then would be reasonable or that the neighborhood can take. But all in all, the zoning is appropriate
for the neighborhood as well as for their future use. And that's all I have.
How big is the outbuilding that they want to put in?
400 square feet. 400 square feet, right? Yeah, it's basically the size of a two car garage,
but it doesn't have any additional driveway access or anything like that. So it's for
lawn tools, stuff like that, not cars. So it's on the order of a pole barn?
Yeah, probably a little bit smaller than the average pole barn in Mount Pleasant that's
being constructed these days. But yeah, Ron, did you have anything?
No, again, my colleague, Washburn, she said everything that we discussed at the planning
commission and we're good with that. There actually was a comment from one of the commissioners that
did the proposed garage because they're calling it a garage. It's really an outbuilding in my
eyes in terms of the way it's going to be used. Should it have its own driveway or
be consolidated? And the intent of the map that site plan they showed us was for no
additional driveway access at all to the building. So it's a storage building. They have a pool.
They probably have chairs and things that need to come inside. And the current garage they have
is a bit small. Okay.
So in the matter then of ordinance 2-2026, ZMA26-01, roll call please.
Ventrini? Aye. Pollack? Aye. Anastacio? Aye. Batia? Aye. Washburn? Aye. Caris? Aye. DeGroote? Aye. So that motion carries.
We have nothing else.
Was that covering both of the items? What's that? Yeah. Was that two different things?
No. Well it was the ordinance approval and the zoning map approval.
Waiting for a motion. Oh we just love it here so much. Why would we ever want to move to adjourn?
To adjourn. Move to adjourn. Okay so we have a move to adjourn. Second. Okay all in favor. Aye.
We stand adjourned. Thank you very much everybody.