MONTHLY TOWN BOARD MINUTES
2024 DECEMBER 10
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Town of Barksdale Board Meeting Minutes

Tuesday, December 10, 2024
Barksdale Town Hall
29025 East Ondossagon Rd., Ashland, WI  54806

Present:  John Nyara, Chris Bretting, Jayson Nohl, Susan Sanders

Absent:  Angela Truchon, Clerk

Other’s Present: David Lucius, Fred Broeker, Mike Bark, Colleen Bark, Susan Jacobson, Stephanie Yon, Bob Sanger, Max Lindsay arrived at 7:40 pm.

Call To Order:  The meeting was called to order by Chairman Nyara at 7:00 p.m. 

Verification of Posting:  J. Nyara confirmed the Amended Agenda was posted in three locations, Bono Creek, Barksdale Town Hall and Lake Shore Drive.

Approval of Previous Month’s Minutes:  C. Bretting made a motion to dispense with reading the November 12, 2024, meeting minutes, seconded by J. Nohl. Motion carried. Copies of the minutes were provided at the meeting for attendees. 

OLD BUSINESS

Comprehensive Plan update: Comprehensive Plan Update:  J. Nohl reported the Comprehensive Plan Commission group met the previous evening and went through the introduction of the Comprehensive Plan Booklet and found a couple of spelling errors and corrected them.  Also, the Comprehensive Plan Committee met prior and approved Ordinance 2024-04 to have an amendment to the map changed due to an error found on a parcel listed as commercial and should have been labeled Ag-1.  C. Bretting made a motion to approve and adopt Ordinance 2024-04 as recommended by the Comprehensive Plan Committee and seconded by J. Nohl.  Motion passed. This past year the Comprehensive Plan Group met twelve times and five of those were workshops working on the booklet. They also looked at two Conditional Use Permits, one for cement crushing plant operation and the other was for short-term rental.  They are currently averaging two permits per year.

Cozy Corner Road update: J. Nyara reported that the Cozy Corner Road construction was completed with only a few touch-up areas.  J. Nohl mentioned that an agreement letter was sent and received back from A-1 Excavating that they will come back in the Spring of 2025 to take care of these issues. Signing off on the project will allow the Town to proceed earlier with obtaining the grant to help offset the amount of interest currently being paid to Northern State Bank. The grant would not be awarded until the project was completed.  S. Sanders gave a financial update of the total cost of the project.  J. Nohl and Aaron Scharf of Cooper Engineering were able to negotiate a runover cost on the aggregate, saving us approximately $17K from a 20K original charge.

Ondossagon Road update and possible action: J. Nyara introduced Max Lindsay (arrived at 7:40 PM) who is our Town Attorney and is counseling us regarding the Ondossagon Road issue and  provided updates and an explanation of next steps in moving forward. He said the lower portion of the road was not constructed well or planned well due to the fault of the contractor, Angelo Luppino who did the build and MSA Engineering who oversaw the project.  The attorney said he has gone back and forth in getting it resolved, and negotiations have shut down. All the claims have been asserted but no litigation has commenced yet. He explained by submitting a claim is an informal opportunity to resolve and if that doesn’t work, the Town can commence legal action although in this instance its more complicated as Luppino being the contractor requires arbitration and under the contract with MSA requires a direct lawsuit against them but, there are ways to combine those if the arbitration panel agrees. Moving forward, he has just finished drafting an arbitration complaint for Luppino and see where that goes.  He feels that MSA is at fault also as they designed the road and gave a statement warranting that it would last at least ten years and that has not happened. He did point out that Luppino did not necessarily have much obligation to design the road; however, they did not confide in the construction documents and in certain circumstances there was to be 8-12” depth of gravel underneath and it was only at 4-6” depth.  In reports received from a second opinion even the 8-12” depth that MSA initially designed was not enough to have the road last 10 years.  C. Bretting stated that MSA had a person onsite to oversee the construction and asked if this would come into play allowing Luppino to not do the job properly. Attorney Lindsay responded, “yes” as part of the contract with MSA, required them to be onsite and take sample depths of the gravel placement throughout.  MSA did take some sample depths but, the main difference is that Luppino did not put enough aggregate under that blacktop and MSA did not take enough samples as to what was stated in the contract so this was part of the design flaws and their instruction management responsibility. As far as bonding companies for Luppino and MSA they each have stated their positions on this but there has not been any signed resolution or determination. Core samples taken on various stretches of the road all differed and it is really starting to show with all the dips that are there and still developing on the road. Attorney Lindsay said the next steps recommended would be the commencement of the arbitration action which is very similar to a lawsuit; however, does not take place in a court room. With that, C. Bretting made a motion following by a second from J. Nohl to have Attorney Max Lindsay representing the Town of Barksdale to proceed filing an arbitration action.  Motion carried.  Attorney Lindsay with provide us with updates at future meetings. 

Ondossagon School: The owner of the Ondossagon School was not in attendance at the meeting to provide an update. 

Bono Creek: J. Nyara stated that a 36” X 73’ culvert was installed this fall at Bono Creek.  Bayfield County currently has $30K of state funding that’s available and is able to secure until the end of May 2025 to blacktop the road into Bono Creek which will help offset the total cost of the blacktopping of $55K.  The Town of Barksdale Board agreed to cover the rest.

NEW BUSINESS:

Town Caucus:  J. Nyara briefed everyone on how the caucus is conducted for the upcoming elected positions on the Town Board.  C. Bretting made a motion and seconded by J. Nohl to have the caucus held on Tuesday, January 14, 2025, at 6:30 pm.  Motion carried.  Audience member, Stephanie Yon expressed her interest in running for the Clerk position.

Road Foreman’s Report: D. Lucuis mentioned that the dump truck is in Duluth for repair of the crank shaft sensor which is about an estimated 4 hr. to 8 hr. fix. The new 2000-gallon septic system serving the town garage is in and was inspected by the County and in compliance.  There is now an alarm for the tank inside of the garage.  The area is currently barricaded, so no one drives over till it has settled in spring.  D. Lucuis mentioned that Bob Olson approached him if we wanted any more salt/sand as he would give it to us for the same price as last year.  At this time, the Board decided not to get any and D. Lucuis mentioned we had enough until spring.  There are new tires on both the dump and 1-ton trucks. He also mentioned that Mark Jolma, working for the Forestry, is hauling gravel out of the Olson Gravel Pit for redoing FR 238 from Cherryville to FR 236 in areas that need it while weather permits.

Clerks Report: No report given. 

Chairman’s Report:  Nothing to report other than previously stated.

Treasurer’s Report: S. Sanders gave an overview of the town’s finances. Currently, we have 84 driveways to snowplow and have collected $17,500.  Waiting for the property taxes to be printed at the County and to get them mailed out as soon as she hears from the Tax Lister. 

Next Meeting:  The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, January 14, 2025, at 7:00 pm following the Caucus which is slated to begin at 6:30 pm

Monthly Bills:  C. Bretting made a motion to accept and approve the monthly bills presented, seconded by J. Nohl. Motion carried.

Adjournment: There being no further business meeting to conduct, J. Nohl made a motion and seconded by C. Bretting to adjourn the meeting at 8:22 pm.

Respectfully submitted by Susan Sanders, Treasurer