Petersburgh Town Board Action – Lightning Strikes

by Alex Brooks
At the July 20 Petersburgh Town Board meeting, moved from Monday July 18, Highway Superintendent Ray Harrison said lightning hit the Town Garage and fried the alarm system. He has called an alarm specialist to come look at the system to see how extensive the damage is. Peter Schaaphok said the Town might want to review the whole system, which is connected to all the municipal buildings, as he believes there are problems with the system in other municipal buildings.  Bill Seel agreed, saying he thought the alarm system had been disconnected at the Veterans Hall during the renovations.
Harrison said the Highway crew will be fixing the problems in the Town Park complained of in an insurance company report and he expected to have the Park open again in a few days.
Town Clerk
Town Clerk Callie Crisp told the Board that the Town will be billed $330 for the keeping of three dogs which are in the custody of the Town because they did not have licenses or rabies shots and the owner refused to buy a license or get rabies shots for the dogs. Crisp also said that all the Water District bills had been sent out. The total billing was just over $15,000, and, as of the meeting date on July 20, about $2,000 had been received.
Supervisor’s Report
Supervisor Peter Schaaphok said there is good news on the budget front, which is that receipts of sales tax revenue from the County have been higher than expected. He was gloomy about the Water District’s finances, though. He said the Water District is OK now because the money is coming in, but he expects the District will be “in the hole again by October.” Schaaphok has talked about calling a meeting with Water District patrons to talk about the District’s finances, but such a meeting has not yet been arranged.
Schaaphok also said he had discussed with Town Attorney Kevin Engel the question of how best to handle the Town’s relationship with the PVMCC, and Engel’s advice is to use the Town Board’s cooperative relationship with the Library Board of Trustees as a model.
Public Comment
The only person who came to speak to the Board was Mike Weliczka, who owns Aqua Vista Campground. He said he has spoken with Building Inspector Doug Hull about various structures put up by his tenants at the campground. These were built without permits because those who built them thought they were too small to require a permit or that a permit was not needed because they were temporary, movable structures. Hull now finds that some of them are not up to code, and he has safety concerns. Weliczka asked that these structures, some of which were built quite a while ago, be grandfathered.
The Board was sympathetic, and seemed to feel there is some gray area about which small or temporary structures need to be permitted. But Schaaphok said he also does not want to undermine the efforts of Building Inspector Hull or Assessor Surprise in their efforts to get unpermitted building projects on the tax rolls and up to code. Schaaphok said he would discuss the matter with Town officials and the Town Attorney and see what ought to be done.