WEST BEND — The West Bend Common Council met on Monday to approve a ground lease for the West Bend Municipal Airport, in addition to other business.
According to City Administrator Jay Shambeau, this lease is of great benefit to the city.
“This is a significant revenue increase for the city, which is pretty awesome,” said Shambeau. “It’s good news for the city; this is a special revenue fund for us, for the airport, and will really go a long way for that budget — maintaining equipment and running the airport.”
The previous lease, which had been in place for the last 20 years, was just over $40,000 lower than the one that was just agreed upon, which opens up a sizeable amount of revenue.
After brief discussion, this lease was approved unanimously by the council.
Also at the meeting was a lengthy discussion about adding around $1 million funding to the city’s budget to account for costs associated with improving and reconstructing alleyways in the city.
District 2 Alderman Mark Allen presented this item, noting communications that he had received about the deteriorating alleyways in West Bend, and asking whether the city was considering doing anything about them.
“The bulk of the alleys are in my district, and most of them are in pretty poor shape,” said Allen. “We have alleys that are all but non-passable to anything other than a high-clearance 4-by-4.”
According to City Engineer Max Marechal, while many of the 56 alleyways that West Bend has do require work, these will not be cheap projects. Despite the preconception that these are smaller spaces than traditional road projects, there is a lot more foundational work that needs to be done.
“The foundation of those alleys is in bad shape,” said Marechal. “We would have to go beyond just a pulverizing and repaving; we would probably have to address rebuilding the foundation of so the life of the pavement can be extended.”
Mayor Joel Ongert also noted that the costs of these projects range from $183,000 to around $725,000. Allen added that any action taken by the council toward putting money into these projects will likely have an impact on taxes. The exact impacts will be discussed at later meetings, but it important that citizens know this.
“We can’t just do nothing at this point; they’re that bad,” said Allen. “The way you get things done is through taxation. You don’t wave a wand and make things happen; things we decide upon have an impact, but one of the ways we get things done is we pool that impact.”
This item was not listed as an action item, so no official action was taken.
The council will take place on Aug. 5 at 6:30 p.m. in the Council Chambers of West Bend City Hall, 1115 S. Main St., West Bend.