Newbold hears proposal for new use of former school

The possibility of re-zoning the former Newbold School, from rural residential to a classification suitable for a range of businesses Newbold resident Eric Borchardt wants to bring to the building, was one of the major topics at the Newbold town board’s regular meeting last Thursday, Jan. 29.

Supervisor Mike McKenzie was absent.

The rezoning request would technically come through the town plan commission, but supervisor Scott Ridderbusch, a land use specialist with the Oneida County Planning and Zoning Department, explained the county always advises an individual to talk with the town to get a feel as to whether or not the town would consider a rezone petition.

Borchardt, who said he owns several businesses in Rhinelander and Pine Lake and would like to move “a couple” of them closer to his Newbold home, told the board about his hopes to purchase the school. Its location, at 4630 Apperson Drive on parcel NE 123-1, is beside the Newbold Community Center.

“I am looking at purchasing the school in order to not only move my martial arts facility and workout facility and everything into the school to also have access to the gym and stuff like that, but I have ran an automotive (repair) and automotive recycling center for about the last 13 years, and I would like to be able to move that a little closer, and then have everything rezoned in order to make sure that it would comply with all the town, the county, everything like that,” Borchardt said.

“What I really would like to do is put the martial arts facility in part of some of the larger classrooms that are in there and use the gym as not only kind of a workout facility, but leave the gym open to have people and even residents of Newbold ... have sort of a gym membership there to be able to use the weight room, use the facilities, use the martial arts center as stretching, yoga, stuff like that,” he continued.

“I do also run an automotive repair and recycling center … originally my plan was to kind of knock a couple of walls out of the school in order to put a shop or at least a facility to pull vehicles in and out, but I have also been in contact with the DNR, and I would have to install … basically a two-stage drainage system, just to make sure that no oil or contaminants or anything would go into any of the ground water … there’s two separate tanks that go in there, and … it would be much more cost-effective to build another small building on the property in order to facilitate those drains.”

Borchardt has further plans for inside the school, including a room for his eBay store selling automotive parts such as plastic headlights, bumpers, and other parts unable to be recycled. 

“I also have a couple of barbers and hair salons that would be interested in trying to use some of the space … and then I also have one of the dance studios that’s in town that currently has a building that is not large enough for them and they’re trying to expand, so they also would be interested in taking two to three of those classrooms,” he said. 

Borchardt showed the board a drawing of what he envisions. “Your Newbold Town Hall is down here on the southern side of the building; I would try to keep all of the dance studio, stuff like that on there, so if anybody were to look out the windows they’re not seeing a fence or they’re not seeing cars or anything like that, it would just be a parking lot.” 

He said he’d like to include a privacy fence on the north side. “I do have sometimes between five and 10 vehicles that we have for appointments and stuff like that that are getting fixed, and then as I work through, I can have up to 20 or 30 cars that we are working on getting recycled, taking alternators, starters, copper wires, stuff like that, out and separating all the different metals,” Borchardt said. “So those would all be back here behind the privacy fence ... to keep things looking nice.”

Town chairman Dan Hess pointed out: “This does not follow our comprehensive plan at all. Our business location is up 47 corridor; this is single-family residential. I’m not going to say whether I’d be for or against it, but it does not follow our comprehensive plan.”

Ridderbusch noted the future land use plan and current land use plan identify the parcels up to the school property and one lot past as “educational and recreational.” 

“In my opinion, some of the items in terms of uses that Eric proposes are in line with those types of uses,” he said. 

“The school is there and they’re tearing it down to put up a house,” said supervisor Brad White. “Those types of businesses in there, I could easily start to get on board with. The auto facility, I have mixed opinions on currently.”

“I’m just trying to process it,” said supervisor Petra Pietrzak. “… I personally don’t want to say anything more about it but would look forward to hearing what the plan commission thinks about it.”

Interesting situation

Scott Foster, district administrator of the Northland Pines School District for eight years of his more than quarter-century there, and who plans to retire in June, gave a presentation on the district. 

“You’re in an interesting situation where you have two school districts that split your district, not evenly,” he observed. “We have a smaller section, but we do obviously play a role in that.”

He added Northland Pines differs from the School District of Rhinelander “in that we do not get very much for state aid.” 

“We’re literally down to $13,000, and the state would consider we’re at zero … they look at us as ‘you are very property rich and you don’t need state aid.’ Very frustrating to have our taxpayers have lots of their money go to Madison and not come back,” Foster said. 

He noted that the property value in the Northland Pines School District is $6.2 billion. 

“They just see that we have a lot of property value and they don’t take in effect our poverty rates or any of the other factors that would go into how people are able to pay their taxes,” Foster said. “Property tax obviously is a big issue right now. We’re trying to be part of the solution, but we also are struggling to keep with our dollars and pay our bills as things increase and challenges are in front of us.”

He said the district’s current enrollment is about 1,250 students, grades 4K through 12, plus about 110 to 120 students at the St. Germain Elementary School and Northland Pines Montessori Learning Center.

Asked by Pietrzak what he’d like to see happen, Foster said while there is positive community support, “there’s a lot of negativity towards what our staff does day in and day out … we need to try to get this turned around and realize, let’s work together to find solutions and educate these kids instead of a lot of rhetoric on social media … If we could just work together, I think we could get a lot of solutions.”

The Oneida County board

Newbold representatives on the Oneida County board, Hess and Lenore Lopez, relayed details from the Oneida County board meeting on Jan. 20.

Hess reported the county approved an ordinance change that will allow tourist rooming houses to go under the six-day limit for rentals in single-family zones. The limit of only one rental every seven days remains in effect.

“I did vote on that,” he said. “I did talk to lakes associations in Newbold and they have no issues with it, so I kind of didn’t listen to you guys; I listened to the plan commission and my constituents.”

Lopez reported that also of importance was the county supervisors’ approval of a resolution authorizing the engagement of outside counsel on a contingency fee basis to initiate lawsuits against companies that designed, manufactured, marketed, distributed, and/or sold fluorosurfactant products — PFAS — that contaminated the soil, groundwater and surface water of Oneida County with highly toxic compounds.

“I believe also on the PFAS issue, the state is funding municipal systems,” added Hess. “However, the private well owners remain without financial assistance at this time, so hopefully that will change in the future.”

Also on the topic of PFAS, Lopez told the board “the DNR has expanded water testing for PFAS beyond Stella.” 

“I just heard today that Ahlstrom is offering bottled water to the residents of Stella within a three-mile radius of the town hall (for one year),” she said. “One of the concerns is that the money could be used for other things. Casey Crump on the (Oneida County) board of health kind of indicated that he thought there was better use for that money, and after 2027 then what happens, you know, because the company can say they fulfilled their obligation and what they said they were going to do, and then drop it from there. So, there’s two sides to that.”

Library report

Ruth Jaeger had a 2025 year-end wrap-up for the Rhinelander District Library.

“Overall, physical material circulation was a little bit down from ’24 to ’25 … for the county as a whole, the district as a whole, and Newbold,” she said. “We’re still the second-highest in circulation in the WVLS (Wisconsin Valley Library Service) system, the highest being Marathon County, which is actually like five libraries within Wausau, so we’re never going to be first.

“Nobody really knows what to think about why things dropped a little last year … One thought that I just heard from a couple of people, and I think it’s just that some of the patrons expressed it, it’s like, ‘I’m not reading as many books because I’m spending way too much time looking at the news this year.’ And I kind of feel like that myself. I love to read books ... and it’s hard to do when the news is way too entertaining, but, ‘entertaining’ isn’t necessarily my first choice of words, but let’s leave it there.”

Jaeger added that foot traffic “barely changed” from 2024 to 2025, an increase was seen in e-materials, and that over 5,000 children took part in library programs. “I know there’s duplication because some kids go to their favorite story hour every week kind of thing, but 5,000 kids ... I think is pretty cool,” she said.

Also, as of the end of December, the Ced Vig Holiday Book Fund had reached about $10,000. “We’d like to see about $20,000; that’s a huge part of the book budget for the library,” she said. Donations are still being accepted.

Public works report

Public works director Mark Fetzer told the board, “plowing, sanding, and fixing equipment is basically what we’ve been up to. We had two substantial snowfalls to plow with lots of small amounts in between, and the ice that came after that first snowfall has been with us ever since … that ice pack is pretty obnoxious in some places.”

“When it was warm enough we did use straight sand … and then when the temperature dropped, we had to go back to using the sand mixed with salt,” he said. “When we were using the straight sand there were a couple roads that might have started to look like beaches, covered from one end to the other, but it still managed to come off.”

Among other items, Fetzer reported the town should get a reimbursement of $8,101.21 from the county for recycling tires in 2025.

Also Newbold’s fire chief, Fetzer delivered a monthly town volunteer fire department report that included the 2025 totals of 77 fire department calls and 164 medical calls.

Fetzer also addressed the town board in public comment, sharing his thoughts on tourist rooming houses. “I know the county’s the one dealing with that,” he said, “but you guys should make it as difficult as humanly possible to have any more tourist rooming houses around here than we already have, because my kids will never be able to afford to buy a house.”

Other matters

• Approved raising the authorized purchasing procedure limit of the town chair from $2,000 to $5,000, and for the public works director from $500 to $2,000, in town ordinance 1.06; 

• Approved revisions to the Public Works Employee Handbook for 2026;

• Agreed to have Hess and Fetzer solicit quotes to fix tile grout issues in the Newbold Community Center’s bathrooms; and

• Agreed to have town clerk Kim Gauthier research improvements for the town’s small drop-box.

The next regular meeting of the Newbold Town Board will be on Thursday, Feb. 12, at 6 p.m. at the Newbold Community Center.

Ardith Carlton may be reached at [email protected].