Board of Adjustment Hearing:

The Waupaca County Board of Adjustment meeting on the Iola Car Show sand mine permit ended on Monday, October 21st after 10 1/2 hours of testimony. No decision was made by the five board members as that will be done on Friday at 9 am.

Friday's meeting will again be held at the Waupaca County Courthouse in Room LL42. The five board members will announce their decisions and give the reasoning for their decisions.

At Monday's hearing, Faulks Bros. and their witnesses spoke from 9 am to 12:15 pm and then after a lunch break the Waupaca County staffers report was read for the next hour. Interestingly, Waupaca County Attorney Diane Meulemans and Zoning Director Ryan Brown were on their witness list but neither one testified.

The plaintiff's side then gave testimony from 2 pm to around 5:20 pm, including personal testimonies from all six appellates. Also giving testimony was an expert property assessor who determined that property values could go down around 25 percent for homes abutting the mine and anywhere from 3 to 23 percent from one mile away to within 500 feet of the mine. The appellates three homes were estimated to lose $224,000 in value if the mine were approved.

Then letters from the public were read for the next 90+ minutes. There were 37 letters against the mine and seven for the mine. Letters that were sent by October 7th were already in the BOA's packet and they included 40 against the mine and 12 for the mine, for a total of 77 letters against the mine and 19 for the mine.

Faulks Bros.' lawyer along with Jon Faulks gave the final rebuttals and the meeting ended around 7:40 pm. Now the decision is in the hands of the five BOA members and they will announce that decision on Friday at 9 am. See you there.

If you want to watch all 10 1/2 hours of the Board of Adjustment meeting, you can on this YouTube link provided by Waupaca County:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2YpZk4EjRQ

Our lawyer, Christa Westerberg, begins her testimony at 5:06:56.

Laura and Ron Scott give their testimonials at 5:29:25

Greg and Chris Ambrosius give their testimonials at 7:04:25

Ken and Joanne Mentzel give their testimonials at 7:59:07

Kurt Kielisch’s property appraiser testimonial begins at: 6:20:42.

Letters and public testimony that were read begins at: 8:41:40.

There was a lot of information that stood out to me on Monday during 10 1/2 hours of testimony for the sand mine permit and I don't want to analyze all of it while the Board of Adjustment members are still deliberating the fate of this permit.

But one moment stood out to me more than any other and I must post it here. For Faulks Bros. to get this permit, they must prove with "substantial evidence" that they are in compliance with 28 different requirements. For me, I didn't know how they would address Requirement 3 in Waupaca County Ordinance Chapter 34.14.5.1(b) and I was curious to see how they would.

Requirement 3 says: “The proposed conditional use will be consistent with all relevant aspects of the Town and County Comprehensive Plans.”

Since the Township of Scandinavia unanimously denied this sand mine permit twice because it was not in compliance with the 2030 Township of Scandinavia Comprehensive Plan, it really would be impossible to prove that it was. So they had multiple people talk about the Plan being outdated, not updated, not law and more.

Mark Sweeney, their lawyer, even stated that "we don't believe that the Town Plan is anything we have to comply with. No. 1, it's out of date and it's not a regulation."

I guess that's one way to deal with that requirement. We will see if the Board of Adjustment agrees with him -- which makes every single Township Comprehensive Plan totally useless -- or if they follow Requirement 3 to the letter of the law.  We will see.