By Paul Schmitt
The Sturgeon Bay City Council’s 4 to 3 vote Tuesday to approve a settlement agreement that would end a lawsuit filed by Friends of the Sturgeon Bay Public Waterfront does not mean the lawsuit is over. Since the Waterfront Redevelopment Authority rejected the agreement last month by a 5 to 2 vote and is also named in the lawsuit brought by the Friends group, there is no settlement yet, according to City Administrator Josh VanLieshout.
VanLieshout says the next step is for the Wisconsin DNR to hold the declaratory ruling on the Ordinary High Water Mark (OHWM) on the disputed land. The lawsuit was initially won by the Friends group and banned development of a proposed hotel on land that Judge Raymond Huber ruled was once lakebed. Judge Huber would also have to sign off on any negotiated settlement.
The four members of the city council who voted for the settlement agreement were Kelly Catarozoli, Barbara Almann, Laurel Hauser, and David Ward.
So the three aldermen (and I think I can guess who they are without reading the official minutes) who voted against the settlement are voting for what, essentially? Continued gridlock on development? Increased legal fees? A fantastical hope that if they close their eyes and hold their breath long enough, the Friends group and their inconvenient lawsuit will go away and life will return to what it once was, when the business of the city could be conducted with a wink and a nod across breakfast tables and every day was a glorious closed-door meeting day without any awful public scrutiny? I fear the 4-3 vote to accept, rather than a 6-1 or 7-0 vote (C’mon, it was YOUR Ad Hoc committee and YOUR high-priced lawyers who negotiated the settlement, city council!), will do little to reverse the vote on the WRA, the tail that wags the dog around this city. This thing will go on and on and on, until that day in the future when some lawyer can look at our scenic dirt mounds and say, “My fees are now even higher than those! Is this a great city or what?”
,Why doesn’t this whole ugly mess including the dirt piles just Go Away?
One WRA member who voted against the negotiated OHWM settlement at the last WRA meeting changed his mind with his Common Council vote yesterday. I don’t think anyone holding property in the TID district should be allowed to vote on this issue period, either as a Common Council member or a WRA member. The consequences for property values potentially drastically increasing or decreasing, with determinations made regarding the Public Trust Doctrine, whether through precedent set in a law suit settlement or through rumored legislative rule changes, should be recusing themselves from voting on the issue of the negotiated settlement.
———————–
The WRA ought to be working on an updated plan for developing the west waterfront for no other reason than the Papke suit. None of the 5 WRA members who voted against the negotiated settlement were acting in the best interest of the city by obstructing the negotiated settlement. At least four of them should be resigning immediately. Voting members who are also employees of the city’s largest waterfront industry, just for the sake of appearances, should voluntarily be recusing themselves too.
Correction, I made a mistake in my first sentence in my previous comment, Mr Ward voted both times to support the negotiated OHWM settlement. Apologies for my mistake. Words you are unlikely to hear from the WRA as they continue to throw good public money after over a million dollars wasted on their failed policy, with no discernible plan going forward. Words you are unlikely to hear from three aldermen who voted against the OWHM settlement.
The $$ spent on the cities lawyers, their consultants, their choice of lawyers for the negotiation, Papke, etc etc etc and the continuous child’s play proves that Birmingham is not qualified to be Mayor.