Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By ZACHARY MARANO
MERCER, Wis. — After a public budget hearing and a special town meeting of electors, the town of Mercer board of supervisors held their regular meeting at the Haines Building in Mercer on Thursday evening.
This year, the Rice Lake Association of Mercer received a grant from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to remove curly leaf pondweed from Rice Lake to prevent or minimize the downstream contamination in the Turtle River Watershed. According to the Turtle-Flambeau Flowage & Trude Lake Property Owners’ Assoc. website, the grant is for three years with a total of $127,000.
Sendra said that the project to remove the invasive weed started this year and that over 40 tons of curly leaf were pulled and disposed of. He said that he will keep the board updated on their progress or lack thereof.
“(Curly leaf) is really terrible because if it goes downstream, it will ultimately hit the flowage and I believe it will affect our economy, because we’re a tourist economy and a good part of it is the flowage. We’re having a meeting with the DNR. There’s been a snag and we’re trying to alleviate it,” Sendra said.
Sendra said that Shay Dam was defaced with graffiti. Last month, workers had installed new concrete facing and performed other repairs on the structure that controls the flow of water from Fisher to Spider Lake. Board supervisor Eric Snow said that the graffiti will be formally reported as vandalism.
“To anybody here who knows, please turn around and let us know who did it,” Sendra said. “Maybe we can get them to clean it up. It’s time we stop doing stuff like this. We’re proud of our town of Mercer. When this goes on, it’s a black mark for the town of Mercer. Anybody caught doing this will be responsible for it and they will clean it up or pay the consequences, whatever they may be.”
In her report to the board, Treasurer Kelly Joustra said the town received $64,287.38 in room taxes in the third quarter for a total of $134,981.40 in room taxes. She said the Mercer Area Chamber of Commerce will receive $48,215.54 of the third quarter’s room taxes and the town will receive $16,071.84, 20% of which will go to the parks and recreation department.
To the tourist rooming houses that are still not paying their room taxes, Sendra said that they will subject to fines and other penalties per 2021 Wisconsin Act 55.
“It also says that if we — the town — feel that we’re being cheated, we have the right to get access to your personal records. I doubt that many people want that to happen, so we’re giving notice … (Act 55) gives us authority to go into private lives and businesses,” Sendra said.
Sendra said that the town has already notified rental companies about the act and that he thinks they will continue to see tourist rooming houses pay their room taxes in the coming years.
In other business, the board approved:
—The appointment of Mary Warren as board member and Nicole Christoferson as the Mercer School District’s representative to the Mercer Public Library board of trustees. They will serve three-year terms from Jan. 1, 2022 to Dec. 31, 2024.
—A tourist rooming house application for Nordvann Cabin LLC on 5477N Lake Rd. East.
