Village wants to update village hall, improve campground

By Sarah Nigbor

The Village of Bay City is asking the Pierce County Board’s American Rescue Plan Act Ad-Hoc Committee to consider appropriating about $775,000 of the county’s $8.3 million in funds to projects village ocials say will revitalize the river town. The Pierce County Board Ad-Hoc Committee’s pur- pose is to figure out how to appropriate the county’s $8.3 million in awarded American Rescue Plan Act funds. They meet about once a month; the last meeting was Tuesday, Aug. 16.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury is responsible for the funds’ distribution. Four broad eligible uses for ARPA funds include:

• Revenue replacement for government services

• COVID-19 expenditures or negative economic im pacts from COVID-19, including assistance to small businesses, households, hard-hit industries and economic recovery.

• Premium pay for essential

workers.

• Investments in water, sewer and broadband infrastructure Bay City Village Clerk Kim Lunda spoke to the committee about Bay City’s requests, which include (items 1-5 in order of importance):

• $200,000 for village hall restoration

• $285,000 for resurfacing the village campground’s parking lot and one block of entrance No. 2

• $30,240 for shoreline restoration within the campground waterfront

• $30,000 for a walking/ biking trail around the pond behind the campground • $40,000 for a village Bob cat

• $22,376.09 for four new campsites in the lower campground

• $5,000 to add six new rustic tent sites

• $2,200 to update fish cleaning station

See ARPA FUNDS, Page 8

The Bay City Campground has an incredible view of the Mississippi River that draws in campers from across the US. Photo courtesy of Village of Bay City website ARPA funds

from Page 1

• $78,870 to purchase a portable restroom for the rustic campground and to use at Saratoga Park events

• $6,000 to purchase canoes, kayaks, paddleboards and life jackets for public rental

• $700 for village cameras

• $28,000 to purchase eight new light poles for the downtown and along the highway

• $47,000 for a digital sign installation along Highway 35 “We are a small community of less than 500 people,” Lunda said. “We are in the bottom three for what we received for the ARPA funds (in Pierce County). We don’t get a lot of the larger contributions like some of the larger communities do.

“Small towns in Wisconsin are struggling. I can see that we are not the only ones. I would really like to encourage the board to give these communities that don’t get that funding more opportunities. When you give to a town or village you give to the whole community.”

Bay City received $25,853.13 in ARPA funds in 2022 and 2021.

Lunda said that if ARPA funds are contributed to private businesses, those businesses make money ou the funds.

“We don’t want to make millions; we just want to keep our community afloat,” Lunda said. “It would be a huge economic boost and make us more sustainable, and bring more recreational opportunities to Pierce County.”

The village has entered into an agreement with the Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who will conduct a $23 million habitat restoration project on Lake Pepin that will include dredging a channel from Bay City into the Mississippi River, which has filled in with sediment.

“These improvements that we are requesting funding for go hand in hand with that project,” Lunda said. “It would be icing on the cake for us because it would help with those recreational opportunities for the public. It gives a low-cost recreation opportunity for the community, which would help our low-income people enjoy recreation.”

Lunda said people from all over the US flock to Bay City on the Great River Road for fishing, camping, bird watching, sight seeing and hunting.

Village President Roger Spindler emphasized the Corps of Engineers’ project ties in with the second item the village is requesting funds for.

“We’re anticipating a lot more travc to our boat and river access,” Spindler said. “It would help us if we could improve the parking lot.”

As for the shoreline restoration, over the years high water has eroded the banks and eaten away at the campground.

“We’re going to start losing some campsites,” Spindler said. “We have permission from the DNR to restore 200 linear feet.”

Trustee Norm Baker spoke about what the village hall restoration would mean to the community. It’s the village’s No. 1 wish list item. Not only does the historic building host senior citizen meals, village and community meetings, birthday parties, and funeral lunches, but it could be used for more if it were handicapped accessible.

“We want to keep that in as good of shape as we can so we can keep it for the community,” Baker said. “The impact that Bay City has on the river as far as a community is key, because we are on the river as stated but we have the opportunity to present to Pierce County that we have access that no other community really does. I really feel that it is in the county’s interest, the board’s interest, to help the village with a grant so we can improve what is already there and make it more accessible to our community, our county, our towns and individuals that come from all over the US.”

Currently, village hall’s upstairs cannot be accessed because it is not handicapped accessible. It has limited use.

“If we can improve and restore that building and add an elevator, it is our hope that we could have functions there as had happened in the past,” Baker said.

County Supervisor Kris Sampson asked how many campsites the village has, which is 50. All have sewer, water and electric. The campground is full with a waiting list, so it’s not actively promoted. Most of the sites are seasonal, but 15 or so are kept open for weekend use.

Board Chair Jon Aubart said the committee will be using a scoring matrix to pare down requests.

“This is going to be a really divcult task to pare down for so few dollars,” Aubart said. “I never thought I’d say $8 million is so few dollars. There are a lot of really worthwhile projects out there.”

The committee makes recommendations to the county board and the board as a whole appropriates the money.

Broadband consultant proposals

County Administrator Jason Matthys said a “request for proposals” was sent out for a broadband consultant with three companies responding.

“The intent wasn’t to determine if we need broadband, but where in the functional markets is it best for us to make any investments if any and possibly to implement some kind of public/private partnership with these entities and to understand how their business works,” Matthys said.

The three companies are HR Green, De sign Nine and Power Systems Engineering.

A deep dive into the companies will be presented at the next committee meeting.

Body scanner

The committee voted to forward a request to the Finance & Personnel Committee for appropriating up to $245,000 for a full body scanner for the Pierce County Jail.

Matthys said the State of Wisconsin Jail Inspector called two weeks ago about the jail inspection report. He called out two things: The need for additional jail administrative assistants and integration of a full body scanner in the jail.

“He said 10 years ago, it would have been a want, but now it’s a reality,” Matthys said. “More contraband and narcotics are finding their way into county jails, tucked in orifices that ovcers don’t have the ability to locate readily. Two local jails had inmates ingest narcotics; two overdosed, one died.”

Stavng issues are contributing to contra –

band getting into jails, Matthys said.

“The stau that you have are working more hours and they’re getting tired, and through no fault of their own, this can result in them being a little less detail-oriented at the point of entry,” he said. “This piece of equipment could pay dividends, saving the life of an inmate or a stau member. Weapons are also making their way in and they are getting more and more creative on smuggling them in.”

The scanner also performs temperature checks, which can help mitigate infectious disease spread, keeping inmates and stau saf er.

“This isn’t just a recommendation for us; it’s a recommendation to all county jails that don’t have one,” Matthys said. “It can be utilized in the existing pre-booking area without any modifications to the facility.” Jail Lt. Ali Verges said the jail is one of the biggest liabilities to a county.

“Where do the people go that don’t belong out on the street? They go to the jail. Within the last two weeks, we’ve had meth in our jail. Females have brought it in through their body cavities. Luckily we haven’t had an overdose situation, but drugs were located on their person,” Verges said. “We are one of three counties out of 14 (in the region) that doesn’t have a body scanner.” Matthys said the county jail is one of the arms of county government that operates on levy funds. The county is currently going through the annual budget process.

“As of right now without doing any fine tuning, we are just about $1 million over our mark,” Matthys said. “This is the only opportunity to pay for this without having to levy.”

He added that any time that the jail inspector makes recommendations and brings a de- ficiency to the county’s attention and ouers a solution, and the county ignores it, its liabili- ty goes up significantly. “It would certainly help mitigate some of the county’s liability,” Matthys said. “Every time that that shows up on the annual report from DOC (Department of Corrections), I think that’s problematic for us.”

The committee will next meet on Sept. 20.