Letter to the Editor:

It was a meeting reduced to a discussion of excrement. Literally, not figuratively. 

When an Eagle River resident stated that she walks her dog daily through the park parcel Eagle River wants to rezone as residential, as shared during the January 8 Eagle River Planning Commission hearing, the response from Alderperson Jerry Burkett, as petitioner, was not acknowledgment for her loss of public space, but instead, “thank you, you’re one of two people that brought a baggie; I watched it.” 

Burkett went on to state he has been to Riverside Park “no less than 50 times “over an extended period and does not see the space being adequately used. Burkett’s focus on the parcel sale is curious as constituents may recall that Alderperson Burkett stated in 2023 within a Vilas County News Review article he had not been able to “allocate the necessary time commitments to be an effective contributor,” as member of the Affordable Housing Task Force. But the alderperson and county supervisor apparently makes space on his calendar to note how many are walking within a park, and who is picking up after their dogs. Affordable housing remains one of the most critical problems in Vilas County for residents, young families, and potential workers. 

Burkett as hearing petitioner went on to speak for over 21 minutes; it was stated he was then to respond to community concerns during the hearing. Though Mayor Brown had originally said Burkett’s time allotment was three minutes, and subsequently raised to seven minutes, he spoke well over that amount. Additionally, he continued during time devoted to other board and committee members. At no time did Mayor Brown make a motion to amend her stated time limit for Burkett to speak, allowing the petitioner to repeat points, mentally meander with off-topic issues, and merge county financial concerns with city finances. At the hearing, most community members opposed selling the public land, as Mayor Brown restricted each person's testimony to two minutes or less. 

Eagle River claims it uses the 12th edition of Robert’s Rules of Order, which affirms there is a default time limit of 10 minutes per speech, and petitioner may not speak any more than twice on a given motion within the same day. The 10-minute default may be set to a longer time length through motion and 2/3 committee agreement. 

Mayor Brown’s lack of control of city meetings does not allow for balanced and fair participation, which permits dominant personalities to overshadow others. For reasons only known to Brown, she allows Alderperson Burkett to control local meetings instead of maximizing participation, even from her own constituents. (Eagle River videotaped the hearing on Zoom for those who want to review the Planning Commission meeting firsthand.) 

It does not instill confidence for constituents to see errors, confusing line-item titling between documents and omissions and typos on city consolidated budgets even after a Tax Incremental District (TID) auditor found, after completing a review and reported to the council September 9, 2024: “the majority of the projects after the designation date were ineligible expenditures that were made outside the boundaries of the designated TIDs. These expenditures contravened the regulations governing TID spending, which mandate that funds be utilized exclusively within the TID boundaries to promote redevelopment and improve infrastructure.”  

Within the city administrator’s current report of January 6 to the Eagle River board it states, “Included in your packet is a corrected 2026 budget notice.” 

“The budget sheet has since been fully reviewed and corrected, and Council action is needed to re-approve the notice and authorize its posting on the City’s website as a corrected document.” 

“Going forward, our internal review process will be adjusted to ensure multiple staff review and verify the final budget notice prior to approval, to confirm that all figures and line items are accurate.”

Details matter, as does accuracy.  Basic due diligence is what investors do before entertaining the purchase and subdivision of a property. Given everyone will be losing public park land, can Eagle River share its due diligence showing best interest for the community in this rezoning? Can Eagle River specify the net financial gain or loss, as well as the overall impact—including environmental factors—for Eagle River and Vilas County taxpayers after itemizing all costs associated with this current project? During the Planning Commission hearing, the mayor said no such report exists, yet she voted to approve the zoning change for the park. 

Within the meeting, Burkett and Brown frequently referred to state levy limits, yet they did not address the significant issue of misused city TID funds contributing to the city's present financial situation. Unknown to most city taxpayers is the current and actual financial status of Eagle River including the individual TID levy amount within the current tax mill rate. 

Considering the recent 6.8% increase in tax mill rate for Eagle River taxpayers, the misapplication of Tax Incremental District 2 and 3 reimbursements over 10 years, and the reported current negative $495,787 in ER’s TID District Two alone, can the city pay off debt they created using increased tax revenue from this new land sale project? Would the negative TID balance be paid off in full using the tax revenue generated from this public land sale project? Most important, should the public ever lose land due to a city’s fiscal mismanagement?

Mayor Brown promised within her 2025 campaign literature it would be clear how much money taxpayers have, yet even within the recent budget hearing she offered no information on:

• How the mismanaged TID funds affect the current city budget
• What the city’s plans are to pay off its TID debt
• How TID funds were actually used outside the boundaries as outlined in the city’s contract with the state

The responsibility of keeping the TID funds within set boundaries fell to Brown as former city clerk and treasurer along with the former city administrator. The city had to rectify the situation by refinancing with general obligation debt. Since there are 1,628 city residents, Eagle River’s TID mismanagement conservatively cost each person $3,071. When will the mayor offer her constituents a full explanation on this matter?

The following items are still needed from the city of Eagle River:  

— A Riverside Park Land Sale Project Due Diligence report to taxpayers itemizing all infrastructural expenses and projected net gain or net loss for city taxpayers;

— Considering the development’s proximity to a river, an analysis of stormwater runoff for the project; 

— Accurate consolidated budgets from Eagle River for 2025 and 2026 that state TID levies within the Property Tax Levy, broken up between TID levies 2 and 3; and

— A report detailing how $5 million in TID funds were allocated to various projects over 10 years.  

In addition, a topic brought up by other community members during the recent planning hearing is conflict of interest. Neither Eagle River nor Vilas County collect financial holdings or disclosure forms from its officials. Though it is stated no commission will be provided within this public land sale, given land would be sold through a public auction, how can taxpayers know if other conflicts of interest exist, directly or indirectly? How does the public know if their officials have a direct personal or pecuniary interest not common to other members of the organization if a municipality does not reassure taxpayers that they are enforcing basic standards of ethical conduct?

Eagle River and Vilas County allow a council member to use non-governmental business email when conducting business as a public official, as seen on their websites. How does the community know that laws concerning ‘Conflicts of Interest’ will be honored when private business email is being used for public matters, and there is no requirement at local county or city level for officials to list and file their potential conflicts of interest?

When will local government check itself and pick up its own unsightly droppings? 

Kathryn Craffey

Eagle River

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