The Rusk County Zoning Committee will be discussing "Changes to Fee Schedule, Private Sewage Ordinance, Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance, Subdivision Ordinance and Shoreland Ordinance. According to the Zoning Administrator none of the changes to be discussed are of major substance. No Public Hearing date is scheduled for any of these changes.

Sawyer County Zoning Committee has reviewed proposed changes to the Subdivision Ordinance. Further discussion on the proposed ordinance is scheduled for the October Zoning Committee meeting with a Public Hearing in November. A copy of the proposed changes can be requested from the Zoning Department

The Barron County Comprehensive Plan Committee meets Wednesday October 1 at 7:00 pm. Dates and locations of Public Visioning Sessions will be discussed. Since this plan will be hastily thrown together it will be interesting to see if these "Visioning Sessions" will be of any consequence.

The Sawyer County Board of Supervisors has approved the new Wilderness Lakes Classification. It was not done without controversy and a close 9-6 decision. A complete recap of the meeting can be found HaywardWi.Com.

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In a story I find fascinating...the Wal-mart saga in Spooner continues to divide the residents of Washburn County. Now being discussed is changes in the road to decrease costs, lowering the asking price of the land and possible TIF funding. If there is ANY public money put toward this project the residents will go ballistic. More info can be found at SpoonerAdvocate.Com.

In an attempt to clarify some of the changes proposed in the Burnett County Subdivision Ordinance a meeting was held on September 12. The meeting brought together the County Surveyor, Zoning Administrator, county surveyors and the Realtors® Association. The changes proposed are wide and varied. Only one or two major issues of contention remain. Those will be reviewed by County Staff.

The Sawyer County Board of Supervisors will be voting on the Wilderness Lakes Classification. The meeting is scheduled at the Winter School on Tuesday September 18 at 6:30 pm. This shorland ordinance change has been more than two years in the making. Everyone interested in this issue should attend.

In some election news from the area...

In the 87th Assembly District (Price, Rusk, Tayor) Judy Reas defeated J. Suzanne Murphy in the Democratic primary. Reas will now oppose the incumbent Mary Williams (R). This sets up a repeat contest from two years ago.

In the 73rd Assembly District (Douglas, Washburn, Burnett) Nick Milroy won the Democratic primary over three others and will face Independent Party candidate Jeffery Monaghan. There is no Republican Party candidate. This is the district which has been represented for years by Frank Boyle who has retired.

In the 74th Assembly District (Ashland, Bayfield, Sawyer) the incumbent Gary Sherman won the Democratic primary and will face Shirl LaBarre in November. This is also a repeat of a contest two years ago.

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The on again, off again Wal-Mart project in Spooner looks like it headed off again. According to the Washburn County Register...

A Spooner Wal-Mart may be at a standstill, after the Washburn County Executive Committee announced that the company said the project was “in trouble” due to budget issues.

The committee met Monday, Sept. 8, in the Elliott Building, Shell Lake, to discuss the matter. Chair Micheal Bobin said four Wal-Mart representatives met with the county, city of Spooner and the Department of Transportation last week. Bobin said the representatives told those present that originally $2 million of infrastructure improvements for the Spooner project were slated. Now, he said, the company told him the costs have escalated, raising the total to around $4 million. If the cost can’t be brought back down to around $3 million, Bobin said, the store may not come to Spooner.

“They threatened to cancel the project,” Bobin said.

Barron County has a new committee. It is the Program Prioritization Committee. Their first agenda has "Program Prioritization Discussion." Should be a riviting discussion.

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Burnett County Comprehensive Planning Committee had a full agenda this month. Lots and lots of background material to cover. Fifteen months and counting until the deadline.

Barron County has scheduled a Flood Risk Information Open House. According to the DNR Press Release..."This Open House will provide the public with an opportunity to review a recently completed preliminary Flood Insurance Study (FIS) and its accompanying preliminary Flood Insurance Rating Maps (FIRM) that include base flood information and areas subject to significant flood hazards within the County."

The Open House is scheduled for Thursday September 25 beginning at 6:00 p.m. at the Barron County Courthouse, Room 110. For more information you can contact Brooke Bushman at 608-266-9273 or Gary Heinrichs at 608-266-3093, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Floodplain Planners.

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Barron County Administrator Duane Herbert, turned down the offer to move to Itasca County, Minnesota.

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An interesting story was told in the Chetek Alert ...Darn Republican Street the stuff of laughs and local legends.

The depths were murky.

In the past 30-odd years, Chetek's most publicized street has generated a host of local legends. Some thought the property was deeded to the city in the 1920s and the name changed from Brewer Street to "Damn" Republican to the less offensive "Darn" Republican in the '50s. Some thought John Shane owned the property in the '50s and deeded it over then. Others said the angry Shane returned to find Brewer Street where Darn Republican should have been and stirred up a fuss that finally resulted in restoration of the road's rightful name.

Wrong. As with most legends, the story is much less complicated-and perhaps more interesting-than the lore, and even a former mayor and Milwaukee newspaper columnist didn't get it all right.

According to Chetek resident Mavis Dodge, a relation of Bertha (née Dodge) Shane, the tale begins with the Shane family-Charles, Bertha and their sons Fay, John and Robert, who lived in Chetek in the 1920s. Charles died in 1928 when Fay, the oldest, was only 6 years old.

Fay Shane was "tall and dark," in the words of Chetek resident Hazel Bates, with "Grease"-style hair and a matching attitude. No one seems to know whether he graduated from high school, but Fay's son Daniel Shane says he was rumored to have knocked out the principal on graduation day.

Shane signed up for the Army Reserves on his 18th birthday. He left town in December 1941 to fight in New Guinea after the bombing of Pearl Harbor during World War II. Like many Chetek men, Shane joined Company D of the 32nd Red Arrow Division, a historic guard unit from Wisconsin and Michigan that traces its roots back to the Civil War.

After he was released from the Army, Shane, who now went by first name Charles, settled in Renton, Wash., a city 13 miles southeast of Seattle. He became a real estate developer and member of the Democratic Party, married wife Agnes in 1945 and had a family.

Daniel Shane doesn't know how his father acquired the land now known as Darn Republican Street, but Shane deeded the property over to the City of Chetek in 1954, with the stipulation that the new street be named "Damn" Republican Street.

The deed was drawn up, except the spoken word "damn" became "darn" on paper-or did it? Some say the name was Damn Republican temporarily, but residents' complaints about obscenity led to revocation of the name. Others say Shane's initial choice of words never went beyond the verbal.

Either way, the street off (what is now known as) Lakeview was "Brewer Street" until City Supervisor Al Hawkos stumbled across the Darn Republican sign, ordered in July 1971, while cleaning the city shop. The sign went up, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Since then, newspapers from Milwaukee to Rice Lake have commented on Shane's very public sentiment. Daniel Shane and brother Michael clipped the stories to honor the memory of their father, who died in 1991.

"He had a great sense of humor," Daniel remarks.

And a strong sense of political partisanship, evidence suggests.

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Burnett County is seeking input on a new Billboard Ordinance. I will let the Burnett County Sentinel give the details...

Billboards, no billboards, or somewhere in between?

That's the question the county's land use and information committee has been grappling with in developing a new sign ordinance since the Burnett County authorized a moratorium on new billboards several months ago.

The moratorium was the result of the county losing a $200,000 lawsuit after it was taken to court over the previous sign ordinance.

"The committee is looking for some direction," committee chair Maury Miller told the rest of the county board at their meeting at Lake 26 on Thursday.

"We have three options we have developed and we'd like to have a non-binding vote so we know where to focus our discussions," he said.

"We've been looking at the St. Croix County sign ordinance, which prohibits all off-premise signs, except in a few instances," he continued.

He said that was the ordinance on which the three options were based.

Off-premise signs are defined as those signs which advertise something not located on the premises upon which the sign is located.

The first option would allow a limited number of new, permanent off-premise signs. The second option calls for no new permanent off-premise signs and the third option is the same as the second with the added stipulation that off-premise signs eventually be eliminated.

"The primary reason for that third option is tourism," committee member Chuck Awe pointed out.

He said states like Maine and Vermont prohibit off-premise billboards to enhance their state's natural beauty.

The board, in a straw vote, liked the first option least, and of the remaining two favored the second option.

It is up to the land use committee now to discuss the options and bring one to the full board for consideration.

Some supervisors suggested putting thew two options on the county's website or in the newspaper in order to get some public and/or business-owner feedback before a decision is reached.

Regardless of the option finally chosen, it is good news the ordinance would be included under the county's land use ordinances, as it would then have an appeal process.

"The county was sued over the previous ordinance because it didn't have an appeal process," supervisor Norm Bickford pointed out.

So, if you have any thoughts on the billboard proposals, contact one of the committee members listed in this article.