Iron County Board elects chair, vice chair, committee

By ZACHARY MARANO

zmarano@yourdailyglobe.com

Hurley — The Iron County Board of Supervisors held a restructuring meeting at the Iron County Courthouse in the wake of the April 5 elections on Tuesday.

The composition of the board remained largely unchanged from their previous meeting in March, as the only contested position with two or more named candidates on the ballot was Iron County supervisor for district 12 and that race was ultimately won by incumbent candidate Opal Roberts.

The position of county supervisor for district 6 was on the ballot as write-in only and may be filled by a new candidate as the previous supervisor, Ken Saari, opted against running for re-election, but the seat reserved for this county supervisor was empty at the Tuesday meeting.

Similarly, the board of supervisors voted to grant the positions of chairman and vice chair to their previous holders – Joseph Pinardi and Thomas Thompson respectively.

“I’ll continue to do what I can do. Thank you for the confidence. Don’t be afraid to holler at me,” Pinardi said about his re-election as chairman.

The board also elected Thompson and supervisors Larry Young, Bill Thomas, Karl Krall and Scott Erickson to the Iron County Highway Commission and Thomas, Krall, Roberts and Tanner Hiller to the agriculture and extension committee.

The board adopted Robert’s Rules of Order, designated Chippewa Valley Bank as the official county depository and designated the Iron County Miner as the official county newspaper.

As part of the regular meeting, Ian Shackleford, vice president of Iron County Outdoor Recreation Enthusiasts, appeared at the meeting to ask the board to write a letter to the state of Wisconsin in support of assigning the first right to acquire a stretch of land to the city of Hurley for a walking/bicycling trail planned between Hurley and Montreal, Wisconsin.

Shackleford told the Daily Globe that plans for this trail have been in the works since 2016, but part of this route has been privately owned by the Canadian National Railroad company. According to Shackleford, CN is taking the initial steps to sell this land. He said that CN needs permission from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation first, as the railroad grade on this land is public transportation.

Shackleford said that following release of this land, the state of Wisconsin will have first right to acquire it, but they can sign this right to another party. He wanted Iron County to support assigning this right to the city of Hurley so ICORE could proceed with this project.

“We’d be happy to do that,” Pinardi said. “That’s really good news. I’m glad you guys are getting it through. It’s long, long, long overdue.”

The board of supervisors agreed to hire part-time help for the comprehensive planning/land and zoning, as recommended by the finance committee. The new hire will be a city staff member who is already working 20 hours a week for the registrar in probate department.

“I will take whatever the county board is willing to give me. I don’t know if this is going to last forever. This has been a last two years — during the pandemic — increase in work. I don’t know if that’ll last two more years, six years — I have no idea. At this point, 20 hours (a week) is a good trial,” department head Erika Roeder said.

The board also approved a proposal to establish a baseline water quality monitoring program for the Potato River watershed. Pinardi said this program will come at no cost to the county and that if the mines in the county become active again, having the water quality fully documented will put the county “way ahead of the game” going forward.

The board authorized Iron County Emergency Management to enter the Wisconsin Statewide Mutual Aid Compact for local emergency management assistance.

After moving into close session and returned to open session, the board accepted an offer on a settlement for litigation with a software vendor for the Iron County Human Services Department.