River News: Our View

As of today, snowmobile trails are open in Oneida County and that’s a good thing, but it can’t mask the reality that the opening was delayed and hampered by a flawed system for opening and closing snowmobile trails that inflicted serious economic injury to many area small businesses and to the general local economy.

We happen to know that just three local businesses in Minocqua have together suffered losses totaling more than $1 million. That’s just three businesses, but many, many more throughout the county have suffered extensively as well. The damage of keeping trails closed in an area where they are rideable inflicts pain not just for bar owners and restaurants and lodging establishments, but gas stations and grocery stores and gift shops and more — the pain pulses violently through the entire local economy. 

All totaled, the loss is and will be staggering, and especially so because it is the second winter in a row that the weather has not cooperated.

But it is not just the weather that has failed to cooperate. Even with less-than-ideal snow conditions, many trails in the northern half of Oneida County have been rideable for some time now — conditions have in fact been worse in the past when the trails were open — but a failure of forceful leadership within the Oneida County forestry department, and in particular by bureaucrats Jill Nemec and Eric Rady, have piled extra heavy burdens on our tourism industry.

Even now those two bureaucrats proclaim for themselves powers they do not have — that is, to set policy that contradicts the department’s committee of jurisdiction, the forestry committee.

To be sure, the by-laws of the Oneida County Snowmobile Council contain all sorts of poison pills that allow a minority of clubs to hold all of them hostage, and that allow a club not based in the county to have undue and inappropriate power to cripple the county’s economy. The council’s bylaws establish a dangerous supermajority requirement and a one-size-fits-all regime that requires seven out of 10 voting members to open, and it’s either all the trails or none.

This year, that set-up allowed a minority of four clubs to dictate to all the clubs, and in particular it allowed the Bo-Boen Club, based in Vilas County, to become a deciding “no” vote against opening Oneida County trails, even as it voted yes to open Vilas County trails and asked for and received special permission to open three miles of Oneida County trails it manages near St Germain.

How can one club with 14 miles of trail in the county and that is not based in the county have effective veto power over county-based clubs with 92 miles of trails? 

It is preposterous that there is no flexibility to allow trails to open in a snowier northern half of the county, or to give clubs an option — by designating individual club trails as zones — to open trails where conditions are adequate.

We think the snowmobile council should take a long, hard look at its bylaws, but our beef isn’t so much with them because, at the end of the day, it is a private organization, or at least a quasi-private organization, which raises another issue we’ll look at in a minute. Instead, our problem is with the Oneida County Forestry Department, and specifically with Nemec and Rady. They have not only failed to do their jobs, they have gone rogue by defying the forestry committee and ceding authority over county-funded trails to the council, at least as official department interpretation.

The DNR’s position is clear that the counties, in this case Oneida County, control the trail openings and closures. Snowmobile Grant Program manager Jillian Steffes informed Rady that the county could open individual club trails if it wants, that the county doesn’t have to bow to snowmobile club pressure — such as the council’s vote that failed to achieve a supermajority — and that the department could “manage your trail system as you need to from a sustainability and practicality standpoint.”

Period.

And yet, when the snowmobile council officially kept the trail system closed, despite a majority of members voting to open, despite a public outcry, despite the pleas of businesspeople that they were hurting, despite the forestry committee’s vote to open the trails, the bureaucrats sided with the council over the majority of the people in their official interpretation. 

Sure, the department voted yes to open the trails — for some reason they have a vote on the council — but that’s meaningless when they say the county, and all county clubs, must abide by the council’s minority decision.

We should point out that the elected supervisors of the forestry department did the right thing — and we thank them for their due diligence — by meeting and overriding the snowmobile council’s vote, both affirming the DNR’s position and their rightful legal authority to open the trails. Yet, the two bureaucrats in the forestry committee have continued to insist after the vote that the council’s approval was needed. 

In effect, the two bureaucrats are saying the forestry committee vote carried no weight. There were in effect broadcasting what the official “real” department policy was, so that every club could read between the lines — abide by their interpretation or lose trail funding. This is the very definition of bureaucratic resistance and defiance. This is a textbook case of bureaucrats going rogue, and they need to be held accountable.

Let’s be clear. We realize that the county code language is murky at best and that it is open to interpretation, as we explore in the article in today’s edition. But given the DNR’s position that the county effectively engages the clubs to work on its behalf, given that the county distributes and controls the money, given that the county sponsors the approved trails, the most common-sense legal interpretation is that the county — after consulting with the clubs — makes the call on opening and closing the trails.

Still, even if that interpretation is wrong, meaning that the forestry committee vote was wrong, that does not excuse the noncompliant behavior of the forestry department staff. They may have their own opinions, but they are bound to follow and articulate the policy set by the forestry committee until that policy is overturned. 

Some might say it doesn’t really matter, that after the forestry committee vote allowing individual clubs to open the trails, the clubs held another council vote, which yielded the same result, and individual clubs chose to stay closed.

But those clubs chose to stay closed knowing they had a forestry department staff insisting that they could not go against the council and open the trails. The forestry department’s position potentially would deny funding for any club opening its trails.

What would have happened if, instead of working to undermine the forestry committee vote, the department instead publicly promoted the committee’s interpretation — that clubs could open their the trails if they wished and not risk their funding, no matter the council’s vote?

We can never know for sure, but the outcome could have been far different.

Another vital point to make is that through all of this, the Oneida County business community has had no voice. The clubs have a voice, reflecting their own interests, and even the bureaucrats have a seat at the table of the snowmobile council, but not any local businesses. 

These people are making decisions that affect the livelihoods and economic well-being of small business owners and their families, and yet they have no voice. As it turns out, the forestry department gives no voice to their elected representatives, either, simply ignoring their vote.

All this must change, and county board chairman Scott Holewinski has assured that changes are coming and coming fast, so that this situation never happens again. Here are some of our recommendations.

First, the county needs to employ only staff members who will follow the direction of their elected committees that oversee them. Rogue bureaucrats who insist on setting department policy on their own must be replaced.

Second, the county code needs to be changed in several important respects. It must clearly state that the county forestry committee — elected supervisors — control the county-funded trails. The code must clearly state that clubs choosing not to open trails after the committee deigns that those specific trails should be open can keep them closed but will forego funding.

The county code needs to make clear that, as Steffes said, the county and the county alone — its elected officials, not its bureaucrats — will set the policies for managing the trail system “from a sustainability and practicality standpoint” and that department staff must abide by those policies and promote them.

And, however the details are worked out, the code must mandate that when Vilas County trails are open, there must be an exceptional reason not to open Oneida County trails, or, better yet, adopt a system whereby decisions are regionally based, with flexibility built into the system so that individual clubs or zones retain options. The days of a one-size-fits-all approach to snowmobile trail openings and closings must end.

The county code must also designate that the county snowmobile coordinator be appointed by the forestry committee and must be a member of the business community of the county. Never again must the business community lack representation on matters of life and death to their businesses and to our communities.

Finally, the county must surrender its membership and vote on the snowmobile council. That membership incorrectly legitimizes the council’s claim to authority by giving the county just one vote on trail openings. In reality, the county legally has the only vote on trail openings, so there’s no need to participate in the council as though it is just a minority shareholder in a company. Though best practices dictate that the county closely consult with the clubs and the council, in reality the county is not one of ten votes but the boss of the other nine.

The council works for the county, not the other way around.

To the extent that this senseless scheme persists, the council must be considered a public entity subject to the open records and open meetings laws. If the department is going to articulate and vote in this council, then taxpayers should have a right to attend those meetings, to listen to discussions, and to witness all votes.

At the beginning of this controversy, the county withheld the specific votes made by the clubs in the initial balloting on opening the trails, despite its active participation. This is not even close to the spirit or the letter of the open government law.

This fiasco must never happen again. We urge the snowmobile council to make the changes that should be made so the clubs are county-based and responsive to varying trail conditions. We hope supermajority requirements and special back-room deals that open only certain trails — made in collusion with the county’s forestry bureaucrats — come to an end.

The council is private so these suggestions should be taken in the spirit they are offered. But, after this season, a day of reckoning is due in the forestry department. The day of serving special interests and not the people’s interest must end.

The forestry department must be transparent, and those working within it must be accountable for their conduct this season.