SAY NO TO OUTDOORS RETAIL SUBSIDIES

County attorney calls resolution illegal

By DAVE RANK - GM Today Staff

February 28, 2007

Despite being called illegal by Washington County Attorney Kimberly Nass, three County Board supervisors continue to lobby for a proposed resolution to rescind the county's $4 million payment to Cabela's Inc.

The financial pledge, a first for the county, was made as part of a 2005 regional agreement used to entice the national retailer of outdoor gear to build its $49 million store and development complex in the town of Richfield.

Nass and other officials say the county is bound to fulfill the payment by a web of signed regional agreements with the retailer, state, and towns of Polk and Richfield.

There is a development agreement with the retailer, a direct grant of $500,000 to Cabela's, a regional pact with the state and towns, a transfer of Highway 145 jurisdiction at the Cabela's site to the county from the state, a $750,000 community block grant agreement and the state's pledge to make highway improvements at the site, Nass said.

"A number of things have happened and all those things are tied into the county's (funding) agreement," Nass said.

Resolution author Donald Berchem claims the county can back out of the controversial payment because the deal is dependent on the County Board approving a borrowing resolution that has yet to take place.

"Let's get over this nonsense, " said Berchem, a County Board supervisor from the town of West Bend, during his presentation to the County Board's Executive Committee Tuesday morning. "Is this a good thing or isn't it a good thing to give a retail business $4 million? Let the new board decide."

Berchem has support from his fellow supervisors David Radermacher, town of Richfield, and John Stern, town of West Bend. Stern is a member of the Executive Committee.

"It is illegal," Nass said of the proposed resolution. "You can't rescind if you have a contract in place. ... I feel we have to carry out our obligations."

"Does Washington County want to break its deals?" said Douglas Johnson, the county's ad-ministrative coordinator. "I hope the majority of the board will recognize we made a promise and we should fulfill that promise."

"The status of the Cabela's agreement, according to (the county attorney), it's an agreement and if we fail to follow through, we end up in court," said Executive Committee member Mary Krum-biegel, a county supervisor from the town of Jackson.

Berchem pointed out that the county already is in a legal fight over the Cabela's payment, with a lawsuit filed by a county resident opposing that agreement.

Johnson denied that last year's board action to rescind support for a Purchase of Development Rights rural land preservation program is a precedent for a vote blocking the issue of general obligation bonds for the Cabela's project, something supervisors are claiming.

"Keep clear the difference between policy and legal contract," Johnson said. "There was no legal contract (with the PDR program). Comparing it to the Cabela's legal agreement is only a rhetorical one."

County Board Chairman Thomas Sackett, Hartford, asked Nass to provide all county supervisors with copies of the Cabela's project agreements and the proposed resolution, which the Executive Committee will again discuss at its next meeting.

This story appeared in the West Bend Daily News on February 28, 2007.