April 6, 2023 at 3:34 p.m.
Pelican Forest easement resolution to return to county board in May
Committee members bash proposed easement purchase
The committee has been investigating the accuracy of a resolution opposing the easement purchase - there were allegations that some of the resolution's preamble statements were inaccurate - as well as gathering information about the overall pros and cons of the purchase.
The county board formed the committee last month, directing it to return with a revised resolution to consider no later than the May meeting.
After hearing reports from committee members on assigned areas of research, the committee this week scheduled a May 1 meeting to finalize the resolution that will head to the board on May 16. That resolution could include new information based on committee research, in addition to correcting inaccuracies.
At one point during this week's meeting, committee members considered fast-tracking the resolution to the county board in April, but finally settled on the May date after supervisor Steven Schreier - who was attending but is not a committee member - cautioned against it.
Schreier at first wondered whether the resolution could even be returned to the board before May, but the vote at the board was to bring it back by May, and Oneida County corporation counsel Mike Fugle advised that it could be considered by the board if it was on the agenda and the full board voted to hear it. Fugle explained that a vote might not even be necessary if it was on the agenda.
Schreier said presenting the finalized resolution at the April 18 meeting - it was already April 3 and the committee needed to meet again to produce a finished version - would not give the public sufficient time to review changes to the resolution.
"My objection would be, at the next meeting is where we are going to see the recommended changes, and how long after you make that public recommendation is our county board meeting?" Schreier asked. "Do you really want it to look like we're trying to squeeze this in under the wire and give people as little time as possible to respond or look at it?"
Schreier recalled that, at the last board meeting, when the original resolution was considered, it had appeared on the agenda only on the Friday before the Tuesday board meeting.
"That's what everybody was a little bit peeved about last time," he said. "... That's a public perception thing, and it's up to you. I would probably recommend not doing that. I would let this play out in May."
Schreier said that was especially important if new material was added - particularly referencing a lack of communications by the DNR in notifications about the proposed purchase - and that the public should have time to assess that new information.
The committee agreed and set May 1 to finalize the resolution for the May 16 county board meeting.
The assignments
At this week's meeting, each member reported on committee assignments that had been previously handed out. Supervisor Tommy Ryden's report focused on the Knowles Nelson Stewardship Fund.
Ryden could not attend and so county clerk Tracy Hartman delivered the statement. The report traced the history of the fund, and how it works, as well as its funding.
The Stewardship Fund started as a 10-year, $250-million program, Ryden's report stated, but it had grown significantly.
"From 2001 to 2021, Wisconsin has allocated $1,078,859,000 just to pay off the debt service for the Stewardship program," Ryden's report stated. "... Since the creation of the Knowles Nelson Stewardship program in 1989, the DNR has acquired 863,283 acres; 332,615 of that is in northern forests."
As of June 30, 2020, the state of Wisconsin has over 5.9 million acres of public conservation land, Ryden's report stated. Forest, Florence, Lincoln, Langlade, Oneida and Vilas counties have 1.3 million acres of public land.
As for debt service, Ryden's report stated, as of December 2022, a total of $452,995,930 in principal is outstanding in Stewardship program debt service.
"If carried to maturity, the state would pay $125,845,095 interest on the debt," the report stated. "That would raise the total debt service payment to $578,841,025."
In 2022-23, the report continued, the state will pay $63,975,932 in Stewardship related debt service, including $44,115,715 in principal and $19,860,217 in interest.
As for the Pelican River easement purchase, Ryden's report stated that the tax base would be affected eventually, though not at the time of sale because the land is in the Managed Forest Law (MFL) program. When those terms end, the landowners could re-enroll the property, or remove it. If the landowner were to sell the property or not re-enroll it, taxes would rise.
Supervisor Jim Winkler, in reporting on his conservation and access easement research, challenged those who support the easement - and the removal of any ability to develop the property - and who argue that the land remains in private hands and taxes are paid.
Winkler said that missed the point. They pay taxes, Winkler asserted, but it's the amount of taxes that are paid on an easement property that is important, and those are "reduced numbers" forever on easement lands.
Winkler went on to say that, for all the people supporting the easement purchase who show up at various county meetings, the constituents who contact him are as much opposed to it as for it.
"They are looking at it from not now, but at 20 years from now, or 50, or 75 years from now, way into the future - and I don't have a crystal ball - but it doesn't seem like good public policy to look at more easement land," he said.
Winkler said Oneida County should not want to become like Forest County, where only 11% of their land is taxable - the rest of it is tied up in state and national forests and in tribal land, he said - and they cannot afford to pay for adequate services.
"They are hamstrung, and they don't have the money to hardly pay for affordable jobs in Forest County," he said. "I would hate to see Oneida County move in that direction."
Comprehensive plans
Supervisor Mike Roach gave a presentation about the affected towns and the county as the proposed purchase relates to their comprehensive land-use plans.
"I did speak to some of the towns," Roach said. "It seems like, after reviewing their comprehensive plans, in every plan, every town wants to be in charge of what they are doing with their land."
When you read the statutes, Roach said, the towns are supposed to be notified of purchases like the one proposed, and on Sept. 19 there was some notification, but the time frame was tight. Roach also said it bothered him that the notification to Oneida County went to the address of the previous county board chairman.
"That bothers me that we are rushing into this," he said. "My mind hasn't changed on this since this started. After reading these plans and seeing that these towns want to be in charge, they didn't have a fair shake at looking at all the details."
Roach echoed Winkler's comment that there were as many people against the easement purchase as there were for it, though he did acknowledge that it took a bit of education.
"Most of the people I talked to, actually almost 100% of them, were in favor of this, but after 10 minutes of talking to them, they are not in favor of it," he said. "So I think people don't realize exactly what this is."
It's not just about mushroom digging or bird watching, Roach said.
"This is a bigger, bigger picture," he said. "There's no right or wrong answer, but again, these towns want to be in charge of their land. This is giving up rights to build on land forever. You're not going to change this."
Roach cautioned that it is impossible to know the future.
"We didn't know on 9/11 that we would have two airplanes crashing into our buildings," he said. "We didn't know in 1963 that our president would be shot in the back of the head. We didn't know there would be a pandemic in 2020. We don't know the future."
But Roach said he could guarantee that there was one thing we do know for certain.
"If we lock this land up, 70,000 acres of our forest, it's never going to have a hotel being able to be built on it," he said.
Roach also said the watershed in the area was a great watershed, but he said there was an important fact about that, too: "It's a bogeyman tactic to say, 'Oh we have to preserve our water. It's going to get ruined if it gets developed.'"
That's not true, Roach said.
"God gave us all this great land, and we have to monitor it and be good servants of it," he said, adding that does not mean having to lock it down so we can never do anything else with it.
And remaining in private ownership means nothing with an easement, Roach said.
"You have to look at what it could be in the future," he said. "Not knowing what the past was, we have to look at never ever seeing anything but lower tax dollars on it."
Roach also characterized as selfish those who said Monico - more than 80% would be affected - is a dead town and will always be.
"Monico sits in a great spot," he said. "You've got Laona, Crandon, Rhinelander nearby."
Due process was lacking as well, Roach said.
"When I look at the plans, all the towns that want to be in charge, under that statute people were not properly informed, the county was not informed," he said. "It went to the previous chairman and he was in Texas, so we did not know this was happening. I don't think the DNR has been upfront doing the right statutory procedures."
Roach said he tries to stay open-minded.
"But it's the same thing after talking to 200 people," he said. "You start realizing. I don't know if it's the majority - there are more than 30,000 people in the county - how many times do you hear them [easement supporters who attend county meetings] say, 'We have 50 people here, and that's the majority.' Well, that's less than one quarter of 1% of Oneida County."
After reading the comprehensive plan, Roach said he didn't think towns were given adequate notice about the details, and that proper procedure was not followed. Some of the town comprehensive plans do talk about lands being in MFL, Roach said.
"But they understand that it wasn't going to be in MFL forever," he said. "Monico has got a chance to develop in the future. I like state parks. I love federal parks. I get having public land, but I'm against doing any more for a while. This is locking down way too much, 80-plus% of Monico. How in the hell are they going to buy a fire truck one day?"
Not only that, Roach said, but comprehensive plans are updated every 10 years with a chance for review every five years.
"So who says they can go to your town and just lock up that land forever," he said. "You don't have that in your long-term plan. I know you don't. You can't."
The bottom line is, Roach said, the DNR failed to consider the comprehensive town plans. Roach also said the plan did not make a lot of fiscal sense.
"I love state lands and federal lands - we have a lot of them - but we are over 30% of public lands in Oneida County," he said. "I'll tell you how you buy that fire truck. You raise taxes outrageously so I can't afford to live there anymore and that's all being done on purpose, and people don't know that. They are just looking at this thing as a great idea, until you see what comes down the pike in about 20 years."
Economic impacts
Supervisor and committee chairman Robert Briggs, who is also the Monico town chairman, addressed the economic impacts to the county and towns, and especially to Monico. There used to be Forest Crop Law, Briggs said, and he said that was great for Monico.
"We could buy a new truck," Briggs said. "The state took that away. So now they are trying to take the land away."
The Pelican River Forest land is valued at $39 million, Briggs said.
"That's 27,997 acres out of our 34,000 acres," he said. "The current tax they pay on that is $20,717. If that was not in MFL land, Monico and the county would be getting $393,077. We've got a difference of $372,000 worth of tax alone."
What's more, Briggs said, the conservation easement is going to decrease the land value by 30%.
"So you're going to take $39 million of value and you're going to knock it down to $27 million - that's right from our assessor," he said.
The bottom line: "This 56,000 acres, the potential tax could be $786,733 versus $41,000," he said.
As for the easement, Briggs said the companies don't get a big tax break unless the easement is in perpetuity.
County chairman Scott Holewinski also addressed the committee, reiterating that the DNR had not given proper notice to local communities.
"Under the statute, it says they will inform the towns and the county that are affected," Holewinski said. "It doesn't say they will try to notify them. The DNR failed to notify the county under that statute."
They sent the notice to the previous county board chairman and proclaimed ignorance, Holewinski said, but in fact another division of the DNR knew exactly where to contact him at the very same time.
"Three days after they wrote the [Pelican River notification letter], the DNR showed up at my doorstep to issue a PFAS violation to me as the chairman of Oneida County," he said. "So one department sends out a letter to the old county board chairman, so it doesn't get to the county; the next department sends it right to me."
Holewinski also said the DNR failed to follow up on legal notices under the statutes, never took into account the state mandated comprehensive plans of the towns and the county in their decision to purchase the conservation easement, and never notified the Natural Resources Board of town resolutions that had been passed opposing the purchase.
So far, the easement purchase has been blocked by the legislature's Joint Finance Committee. That committee could take a vote at any time; the governor might also decide to fund the easement purchase with non-Stewardship dollars.
Tax-exempt land is already massive in Oneida County. As Holewinski reported to the county board last month, adding up lakes, federal land, DNR and Board of Commissioners of Public Lands, and county forests - 300,000 acres is off the books, or roughly 37.9%.
Add in exempt properties like churches and school and town buildings, plus Phase 1 of the MFL easement, which would be 12,497 acres, and that adds another 3.1% to the total land not paying any or much taxes, Holewinski said last month.
Current MFL properties, open and closed, add about another 25.6%, and agricultural land, another 1.9%, Holewinski said.
"We're at 68.5% of our land that's paying very little or no taxes," he said. "The MFL lands take revenues from the town, but they are for future development."
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