Ashwaubenon Village Board
Trail bridge bidding open
The Ashwaubenon Village Board voted at its Tuesday, Oct. 25 meeting to open the bidding process for the building of the Ashwaubomay River Trail (ART) bridge.
Currently, the ART runs from the Riverway Marina to the south side of the Bay HarborCondo Association.
The bridge, which will span Ashwaubenon Creek from Aldon Station to Ashwaubomay Memorial River Park, is the next step in the ART project.
Ashwaubenon Parks Director Rex Mehlberg said it would probably be one of the biggest phases because of the nature of the project.
The decision to open bidding on the bridge construction was approved unanimously, despite some concerns from residents about the height of the bridge and the ability of boats to pass under it.
Visitor center donation approved
Discover Green Bay, formerly known as the Green Bay Convention & Visitors Bureau, requested a $50,000 donation from the Village of Ashwaubenon for the development of its new visitor center, which is currently under construction at the corner of Argonne Street and Lombardi Avenue in the Village of Ashwaubenon.
Discover Green Bay has secured financial support from Brown County and from the City of Green Bay, but still has a gap of roughly $1.5 million to fill in order to fully develop the center.
“We want this to be a facility that really tells the story of our entire community, per European settlement, through Jean Nicolet’s arrival,” VP of Discover Green Bay Cameron Teske said. “Including the Native American influence on the area, the paper industry, the waterways and the importance that had on the early peoples and people today and where we are and how we got here.”
Trustee Steve Kubacki noted that the Village of Ashwaubenon has a long history of working with the Green Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau.
“I think it’s a tremendous asset,” he said. “And it just kind of puts the frosting on the Titletown area, per se… I make the motion that the Village support the Visitor Center project utilizing the remaining excess stadium dollars augmented also by ARPA dollars to a total dollar amount of $50,000.”
The motion to utilize excess stadium dollars and ARPA dollars to donate $50,000 to the visitor center project was approved unanimously.
Howard Village Board
Budget presentation
The proposed 2023 budget was presented to the Howard Village Board at its Monday, Oct. 24 meeting.
The proposal includes raising the tax levy to $8,092,996 from $7,363,711, an increase of $729,285 or about 1%.
Despite the overall increase in the tax levy, the mill rate is anticipated to go down by $0.48 per $1,000 fair market value due to an overall increase in property values.
A public hearing will be held at the board’s next meeting, Monday, Nov. 14, for citizens to share their comments regarding the budget before it is adopted.
Howard-Suamico School Board
Budget adoption
The Howard-Suamico School Board approved its 2023 budget when it met Monday, Oct. 24.
The budget totals $199,698,083 and includes a tax levy in the amount of $34,702,982.
The mill rate for 2023 will be $8.69 per $1,000 fair market value — down from $8.99 in 2022 — which Mike Juech, assistant superintendent of operations for the district, said is something the board should be commended for.
“The thing I want to highlight and give credit to the board for is the action to reduce the tax rate by another 30 cents to that $8.69 level,” he said. “We need to make sure we’re educating and explaining that to folks, because you can control one variable and you are elected to control that variable in a positive way to the taxpayers in the district.”
Green Bay School Board
Budget adoption
At its Monday, Oct. 24 meeting, the Green Bay School Board adopted its 2023 budget, totaling $295,934,520.
In anticipation of the referendum appearing on the ballot for the Nov. 8 election, the board approved two different tax levies.
If the referendum passes, the tax levy will be $97,358,393, compared to $55,358,393 if the referendum does not pass.
The 2023 mill rate would be $8.00 per $1,000 fair market value with the passage of the referendum or $4.55 without.
The mill rates in both of the approved scenarios would be lower than the previous year’s mill rate, which was $9.03.
On the topic of the referendum, Chief Operations Officer Josh Patchak said some of the projects currently slated for funding through the referendum will still need to be completed if the referendum does not pass, but that the funding will have to come from elsewhere in the budget and some less urgent matters will need to be put off further.
“As a matter of habit, we allocate $3.5 million per year to maintenance and upgrades to facilities,” he said. “We’d probably start to have some conversations internally about whether that allocation is sufficient to meet the immediate needs. It’s a shell game at the end of the day because there’s only so much capital available to us for those projects, but things like roofs and a couple of the mechanical things will need to be addressed more urgently.”