River News: Our View

OK, maybe the saying goes a little differently, but you get the picture.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is one of the nastiest, most dishonest, most underhanded and most vicious of any Wisconsin bureaucracy that has ever existed. OK, except for maybe state and local public health bureaucracies, but that’s a separate story.

Naturally, this evil character comes out more when there is a Democratic governor. When Democrats are in power, Dr. Jekyll becomes Mr. Hyde.

Back during the days when Democrat Jim Doyle was governor, things got so bad — and so many lives were destroyed — that we compiled an entire book from the investigative stories we developed. Many of the stories about DNR actions and officials demonstrated such warped behavior and outlook that many people put them in the ‘Surely this can’t be true’ category. 

But they were true. To cite just one example, one of our favorites, a DNR water specialist once had a house on a lake near Rhinelander. It’s funny how DNR officials who don’t think people should live on lakefront properties somehow end up living on lakefront properties. Anyway, this official added a deck, but, oops!, county officials said it wasn’t allowed because it was too close to the ordinary high water mark. 

Not to worry. The official got a second opinion — as it happened, from a co-worker he supervised in the DNR water division. Yup, she put on waders, waded out into the water, and miraculously found a new ordinary high water mark that allowed said deck after all. All this from two officials who mercilessly persecuted average citizens for minor and even nonexistent infractions.

That’s when the saying, ‘the Devil’s in the DNR’ was born! Details didn’t matter; only the DNR did.

Things quieted down during the Scott Walker years, when evil Republicans decided that maybe, just maybe, an agency whose very mission had become trampling on people’s constitutional rights wasn’t a very good idea after all.

But of course along comes Tony Evers, and we have back to the future.

Now the agency has gone rogue again. Its recent behavior in the land grab known as the proposed Pelican River Forest easement purchase is quintessential evidence that the agency should be shut down and rebuilt from scratch.

In order to steal land and put an untold number of people into perpetual poverty —thousands and thousands and their children and grandchildren — the agency lied and cheated and failed to follow statutory requirements. Among other things, it failed to properly notice affected local government officials, and it filed opposition resolutions in the circular file so they could report no known opposition to the Natural Resources Board. 

What a fun bunch!

Now we have Oneida County’s good-faith and common-sense effort to revise its shoreland zoning ordinance to be more user friendly and logical, not to mention more efficient in permitting.

And suddenly, the DNR says it won’t support some of those revisions because they are illegal, even though they have allowed them in some places since at least the time of Moses. Actually, the story is that the author of the Ten Commandments planned to settle in northern Wisconsin but found the DNR’s shoreland restrictions too onerous, so he went to Egypt instead, where he whittled everything down to 10 easy-to-follow logical rules.

The rules are anything but logical in Wisconsin. For example, the state enacted a law allowing the rooftops of flat boathouses to be used as decks. Curiously, though, the DNR is telling Oneida County that people cannot have any stairs to access those decks.

In other words, the DNR didn’t like what the legislature did, so, noticing the absence of any explicit mention of stairs in the statutory text, banned them. So people can have decks they cannot use. That’s perfect bureaucratic logic, and it spells out the DNR’s First Commandment: Thou shalt not cross the DNR.

Never mind that stairs attached to a structure should logically be considered part of the structure. The DNR said no, even though, as mentioned, other counties routinely permit them.

Now Oneida County is fighting back, and we urge every resident to vocally support the county’s zoning committee as it hires outside counsel to take up the fight.

A couple of points are worth making.

At last week’s county administration committee meeting, corporation counsel Mike Fugle cautioned that Oneida County could face a very big bill if this battle goes to court and the county loses. The county would be on the hook for all the costs of the agency coming in to write and implement a superseding “compliant” ordinance.

Fugle is right; in that scenario the expense would be great. Fugle was also doing his job as counsel for the county, advising on the worst-case downsides of any lawsuit or action. His advice was responsible and legally proper, if not the politically proper advice that needs to be followed.

Indeed, taxpayers should not be too concerned that any such bill would come our way.

First, those of us who have been around long enough should remember the late-great Gary Baier, one of the fiercest defenders of property rights in Wisconsin, who, as Oneida County zoning committee chairman, constantly took on the DNR.

In those days, in the early 2000s, Baier instigated changes, and the DNR repeatedly threatened to come in with superseding ordinances and bill the county. Baier, with the courage to stand his ground, called the agency’s bluff and enacted revisions anyway. 

The DNR never challenged them. The agency never followed through.

There’s an old adage that bureaucrats are ferocious and fearless, at least until they come face to face with a judge and, worse, a jury. Then they run for the hills. The DNR is simply not likely to have any stomach for a court battle that would quickly become a statewide property-rights flashpoint, with the agency’s oppressive agenda on trial.

To be sure, times change, and maybe the DNR will be more aggressive. They also have a new liberal Supreme Court that should embolden them. But nipping at the heels of the agency’s case is some very inconvenient and damning facts that limit their chances for success.

Most of all, the DNR is on shaky ground precisely because it allowed — and in some cases explicitly certified — ordinances that contain the practices the agency is now saying would be illegal in Oneida County. As Oneida County supervisor Steven Schreier suggested, it’s almost a battle we would want to see.

To be sure, the DNR might challenge the ordinance and it’s conceivable it could win. But that brings up the final reason for the county to stand strong with this proposed ordinance and to withstand DNR pressure to change it: It’s the right thing to do.

The committee is in the process of enacting the people’s will. In fact, it all started in a packed meeting of stakeholders in Minocqua. Even if the DNR prevails in court, the agency would win the battle only to lose the war. 

An ill-advised court battle could pave the way to a public rebellion that could lead to a complete transformation of shoreland zoning, not to mention of a recognition that land conservation and land development need not be hostile neighbors. Through the compatible virtues of responsible growth and private stewardship, we can revamp out way of looking at property rights. 

The stakes are enormous. A DNR victory over the provisions would bestow legislative authority upon the bureaucracy. It would also obligate the DNR to battle all those other counties. Think of the newcomers denied common-sense use of their properties. Think of all the owners of now nonconforming properties. Think of the backlash against the DNR.

A short-term travesty, for sure, but it would galvanize a property rights movements that has been dormant for a long, time, and whose time has now come again.

The message for Oneida County is clear: Now is not the time to let the DNR bully anyone in this county.