Rebecca Charles of the CEDA appeared before the City of Rushford Village regular council meeting May 18 to get approval to continue with the UW La Crosse CRV Area Trail Study. The study will cost $3,862; Charles assured the council that grants will be available this fall to cover at least half of the cost and potentially the entire study expense. The study would determine the citizen interest in ATV, UTV, and walking trails in the area. Councilman Mike Ebner asked that a safe route to school from the village subdivisions be included in the focus as well.
Charles asked permission to approach Peterson and Rushford about being included in the project; councilman Roger Knutson agreed, noting that the two cities were probably more likely to benefit from the trails than Rushford Village. The council will also approach Jen Hengl at the Chamber of Commerce as well.
Councilman Jon Pettit reported that four-wheeler and side-by-side recreation ordinances had been reviewed. Since Rushford and Peterson already have ordinances in place, he suggested that CRV could accept one of theirs with slight tweaking. Pettit recommended that all three cities have one sticker for such vehicles, suggesting a reciprocity agreement with the three cities. Mayor Dennis Overland and Mike Ebner will approach the other cities to discuss the possibility.
In yet another cooperative effort, the council approved the double chip sealing of their share of the Magelssen Bluff road to be done at the same time as Rushford’s share. The cost will be around $7,000; the road would be closed to tourists the day it is done.
The council decided to ask for bids from the sealing company for blacktop street maintenance in the rest of CRV as well. Such maintenance has not been done since 2014. Public Works Trenton Chiglo will check the condition of streets before work is done.
At the planning/zoning meeting held previous to the regular council meeting, Vern Bunke presented his plan for a housing development in South Rushford near the Sherwood Cemetery. He assured the committee that each lot would be terraced so water would remain on the lot it fell on, and that the entry road would be a 2% grade to guide rainfall to a retaining ditch filled with riprap. Collected water would soak into the soil in that area. Bunke is intending to add twenty properties to the CRV with this development. Some of the committee members were concerned that allowing smaller parcels (some as small as 24,000 square feet) would lead to more people requesting permits to build on smaller parcels than the standard 2.5 acres in CRV.
Planning and Zoning Administrator Jon Pettit recommended that a meeting be held on site so all members could see the actual site. He noted that the area was not the steep land that he’d first assumed it was. Petit reminded the group that they do not give final permission, but only recommendations to the council which makes the final decision. The group decided to have a continuation of their Planning and Zoning meeting on site on Wednesday, June 2 at 6 p.m.
In other business the council:
•Approved Jim Norsad’s solar array installation request near the old REA pole site; a public hearing will be held June 15 at 6:45 p.m. on this request;
•Approved a change order to lower a water main in the South Rushford drainage project;
•Approved refinancing and consolidation of two bonds at the recommendation of Mike Bubany for a savings of $20,000;
•Decided to follow the state guidelines on masking; fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear masks in the building while it is recommended that non-vaccinated people mask;
•Decided that the community center will remain closed until August 1, 2021, unless the adequate cleaning materials and disinfectant sprayer were obtained.
The next regular Rushford Village Council meeting will be held June 1 at 7 p.m. at the community center.
Leave a Reply