STATE OF WISCONSIN
Town of Washburn
Town Meeting Minutes – February 10, 2026

The meeting was called to order at 7:00 pm.

In attendance: Scottie Sandstrom, Seth Vasser, Matt Tetzner, Vicki Thoen, Mike Harvey, Kim Bro, Tom Cogger, Wendy Stein (on-line)

Public Notice was verified: website, Ashland Daily Press, and Tetzner’s Dairy

Public Comments: Tom Cogger presented a painting of the Town Hall that included history of the building.  It was painted by Connie Cogger. Kim Bro wrote the history. The building was built in 1905 and was originally a one room school house. The picture will be hung in the Town Hall.

A motion to accept the agenda was made by Matt, seconded by Seth, all ayes. Motion carried.

A motion was made by Seth to accept the minutes from the previous meetings, seconded by Matt, all ayes. Motion carried.

Reports:

Clerk: Tamarack Health no longer does random drug testing. Learned that they can be done at Essentia Health in Ashland. Will be getting that set up soon. Discussed moving payday from Tuesday after the end of the pay period to Thursday to allow more time to processed in Quick Books. Matt made a motion that we move payday to Thursday, Seth seconded, all ayes. Motion carried. Completed a housing survey for the State. In 2025 the Township lost one single family home on Lucia Road and added 4 single family homes. There is an outstanding balance of $1500 for snow plowing 2022-2023. The information isn’t in QB to determine who owes the money. Will research further.

The WI Towns Association meeting is March 28 at Lakewood’s in Cable. Let Vicki know if you will attend and she will send in registration.

Treasurer: Officially finished with the town’s duty of collecting taxes. Collected $664,235 in total for the first installment of the 2025 property taxes. Of that amount, the Town of Washburn will receive $50,871.78. Property owners have until the end of July to submit the second installment to the County Treasurer. There was an overpayment of $918.45 from two separate property owners. Checks will be sent to them for reimbursement. The bank is reconciled for January. A journal entry was made for $527 to force the reconciliation due to posting errors discovered in prior periods.

Road Crew: There has been a reprieve from snow so a lot of maintenance has been done. The tractor is at Lulich. The total price to fix the transmission is estimated at $26,000. $8000 was budgeted to repair brakes. Mike asked what a new tractor would cost and it was estimated at $202,000 for a New Holland tractor. Discussion was had on if we should fix it or work on replacing it.  Matt offered to research options. Scottie asked if we could share tractor with county Mike didn’t think so because it’s used so much in the summer.

Chair: Bayfield Elec needs to be added to insurance as loss payee for solar energy. We will include it when we renew our insurance at the end of April. Met with John Carlson and Bob Olson & Pam about dust ordinance. Pam mentioned ordinance NR415 and that our ordinance should be amended to match NR415. John agreed it would be good for us to amend the ordinance to agree with NR415. Our current ordinance focuses on the property owner and NR15 places responsibility on both the owner and the truckers. John will work with Pam to amend the current ordinance. Dayton Road – property going up for sale, we are supposed to maintain to within .26 of a mile. We aren’t maintaining quite enough on that road. There’s a culvert that needs to be replaced and in spring we will maintain based on our obligation. Jan 20 a meeting was held at Washburn City Hall including all the entities that have the responsibility of overseeing the reclaimed Landfill on South Maple Hill Road in the Town of Washburn, which include the City of Washburn, the Town of Bayview and the Town of Washburn.  Matt Dickenson of the WisDOT was invited to be present, also in attendance were Kim Bro, Don Jenicek from Town of Bayview, and Mary Motiff Mayor of Washburn. We want get as much clay as possible from the City of Washburn’s project next year to cover more of the landfill. When contracts are bid the city will contact the contractor and we could be first in line for that dirt. Scottie attended the quarterly meeting for the recycling center in Town of Barksdale. The contract with Republic will be renewed this spring. Sandra Raspotnik (School Board member) asked to be added to next month’s agenda. She wants electors made aware of the private school vouchers that are available. We will be adding supervisors and treasurer phone numbers to the website.

Seth moved to approve the reports, Matt seconded, all ayes. Motion carried.

Plan Commission – Kim Bro – Distributed copies of the Comprehensive Plan. There are 11 pages of things we committed to doing for 2025-2026. One area is Economic Development. good area to work remotely. Encouraged to promote Dark Skies, committee is working on ideas for this. Will include information in the upcoming newsletter. Every year members of the plan committee come up for re-election. Caroline Twombly is this year. Checking to see if she will run again.

Motion was made by Scottie to appoint Elizabeth Hughes as an additional Poll Worker. Matt seconded, all ayes. Motion carried.

Annual Newsletter Planning – mail by mid-March, approve at March meeting. Submit information to Vicki.

Finalizing and Approving Road Crew Hire Profile Ad – Seth updated the job ad . Seth will post on Indeed, Scottie will submit to the Daily Press. Vicki will look into FB admin credentials. Run Indeed until March 15. Use town garage phone number in the ad.

Plan for 2026 Insurance Policy Review- time to shop for new coverage. Rural Ins is a good option. Great Lakes Ins – Dave Martinsen. Get quotes by March Meeting current policy ends end of April

Items to be placed on future agendas:

School Board of Washburn President

Review applications (possible closed session to review)

Mower/tractor update

Appointing planning commission members

Dust Ordinance update

Authorize the payment of bills: after reviewing the check details for Jan. 14 – Feb. 10, Seth moved that we authorize the payment of bills, Matt seconded. All ayes, motion carried.

Adjournment: at 8:55 PM Seth made the motion to adjourn, Scottie seconded. All ayes, motion carried. Meeting adjourned.

Vicki Thoen, Clerk