HOWARD – The race for Howard Village president pits incumbent Burt R. McIntyre, who served three phrases, in opposition to JD Kopp, who’s making his first bid for native public workplace.
The winner will spend 4 years main essentially the most populous village in Brown County, which has 20,229 residents, in keeping with the 2021 U.S. Census estimates.
We requested each candidates three questions. Their responses have been edited for readability and brevity.
Furthermore:This is your information for Inexperienced Bay space voters to the Wisconsin spring election
JD Kopp
- Age: 46
- Occupation: Director of Info Know-how, Northeast Wisconsin Technical School
- Schooling: Bachelor of Arts, Pc Science and Organizational Administration, Gustavus Adolphus School. Grasp of Enterprise Administration, Cardinal Stritch College
- Related expertise: By means of my work within the info know-how subject, I’ve over 25 years of expertise managing individuals, budgets, distributors and complicated processes. I’ve been a member of the NWTC Senior Management Staff for the previous 11 years and our governance construction on the faculty resembles how the village is run. I’ve in depth management expertise on numerous church buildings and non-profit boards, and have small enterprise expertise working my very own monetary advisory agency, Kopp Monetary. I’m excited concerning the alternative to attract on all of those experiences as Howard Village President.
Burt R. McIntyre
- Age:82
- Occupation: Retired subject service supervisor, each home and for Europe and Asia; operations supervisor; interim director of manufacturing
- Schooling: Highschool plus 4 years of mechanical apprenticeship, years of firm programs, firm administration coaching
- Related expertise: Three years village administrator, 15 years as village president
RELATED:Incumbent Burt McIntyre faces challengers JD Kopp and Michele Swaer in Howard Village president main
We questioned the candidates on three points that would have an effect on the village sooner or later and requested them to elucidate their positions.
Ought to voters help the general public security referendum?
Kopp: YES; we have to fund further positions that present police, hearth and emergency medical providers. Howard is experiencing speedy inhabitants development; we have to make it possible for all of our residents obtain well timed help within the occasion of an emergency. As Howard provides residents, we will not anticipate to maintain public security spending on the identical degree. Correctly staffed guarantee assist arrives when you name 911.
Some individuals in Howard imagine that new growth tasks within the village ought to pay for it, that an increasing tax base ought to present sufficient income. In actuality, that further tax income is required to repay the debt related to constructing infrastructure for brand spanking new developments. See jdkopp.com, my marketing campaign web site, for extra particulars.
One final level: the staffing proposal. One aspect depends on cross-trained professionals similar to firefighters and paramedics. Whereas environment friendly, one sensible concern I’ve is conserving these extremely expert positions stuffed in a aggressive job market. We could should be versatile to remain totally booked. With way more medical calls than layoffs, it would make sense to permit some teammates to deal with the medical aspect, particularly if that helps with recruiting. Nonetheless, the village wants funding to develop its public safety personnel. We should always vote “Sure” within the referendum.
McIntyre: Completely to help the referendum. Years in the past, the village of Howard and different surrounding communities had the luxurious of getting the useful resource of volunteers to supply emergency providers, particularly our hearth departments. Volunteers saved Howard some huge cash.
Immediately that useful resource is not out there because it as soon as was. It’s getting increasingly more troublesome to deal with hearth and emergency vans responding to emergency calls. As with the police (Brown County Sheriff) and EMS (Howard will take EMS at gunpoint), these providers up thus far are contracted providers. Value will increase have to be absorbed inside our budgets.
The query is not whether or not we develop these providers, the query is; How can we pay for these expansions? Howard is a rising group; it could be inconceivable to not present satisfactory safety to our residents in emergency conditions. Defending our residents is the first duty of presidency.
Ought to the village permit non-residents to pay to swim at Duck Creek Quarry?
Kopp: I believe our leisure sources within the village must be open to all individuals and mustn’t have a residency requirement to make use of them. Present coverage for Duck Creek Quarry Seashore restricts entry to Howard residents and their visitors. That is inconsistent with many different leisure providers supplied by the resort and I might suggest modifications to the seashore coverage. We should always invite everybody to return to Howard and luxuriate in a spherical of golf on the Village Inexperienced, play a league of softball, go to our parks, journey our bikes on our trails, and lots of different actions. That is particularly essential to Howard’s enterprise group. Our eating places and retailers want prospects, and bringing guests to Howard to get pleasure from leisure actions is nice for enterprise.
There are authentic issues about overcrowding at Duck Creek Quarry Seashore. I believe we will discover a approach to deal with the issue with out excluding anybody from the useful resource. One answer can be to subject wrist bands for particular weeks throughout the summer time and restrict the quantity out there on a primary come, first served foundation. This manner the village can management the variety of individuals visiting the seashore at anyone time with out excluding guests who don’t reside at Howard.
McIntyre: An admission charge would assist in the upkeep of the quarry and can be drastically appreciated however wouldn’t clear up the logistical downside of use. Moreover, the cost would add a number of burdensome administrative necessities.
The quarry’s first 12 months of operation was a catastrophe. The seashores have been completely overwhelmed, leading to important questions of safety. There was merely not sufficient seashore to accommodate the customers and the house subject created quite a lot of conflicts between the customers. The variety of police calls has turn out to be so extreme as to require the presence of the police on web site.
Clearly, the results of all of this has had a major influence on our working prices. The council was confronted with the selection of closing the power or limiting its use till we discovered tips on how to make it extra usable. Since Howard residents pay for the quarry facility and it’s in place, the village council voted to restrict its use to residents.
Workers are trying into attainable methods to make the power extra accessible to others. Finally, the Howard Quarry is owned by its residents and they’ll at all times have desire. Hopefully we’ve got one thing in place for subsequent summer time.
What’s the greatest problem the village will face within the coming 12 months? How ought to it’s addressed?
Kopp: Decide priorities for future development and growth. I will discuss three:
Transportation: We are going to quickly have to pay extra consideration to present roads, balancing upkeep prices with spending on new roads. We also needs to be working to attach with Inexperienced Bay Metro’s smaller vans and shuttles to assist faculty college students get to class (many reside at dwelling) and assist seniors get to medical appointments.
Growth: Relatively than filling all out there land with suburban sprawl, I would favor to stability new housing developments with tasks to enhance the standard of lifetime of present residents. For instance, we could develop our park system and supply extra alternatives for out of doors recreation. We could encourage tasks that present providers. We also needs to prioritize inexpensive single-family houses over luxurious items; we’ve got loads of luxurious lodging in Howard.
Power: Electrical energy manufacturing should improve by 26% between now and 2050 to fulfill projected demand. Electrical energy corporations will gladly promote extra electrical energy, however let’s as a substitute produce a few of that power ourselves and put the cash again in our pockets. I envision an formidable rooftop photo voltaic program (see jdkopp.com/rooftop for particulars) to put in tasks for householders. These are new and thrilling concepts for Howard.
McIntyre: The largest problem is our growth efforts on the village degree, however particularly with reference to western Howard. We now have a strategic plan that can take us into the longer term.
The subsequent problem will likely be to work on actual property tax reduction. We’re at the moment working with state legislators to see if state income sharing or another income stream can ease the tax burden on our residents. As at all times, price management will likely be our focus.
Electronic mail Doug Schneider at DSchneid@Gannett.com, name him at (920) 265-2070, and comply with him on Twitter @PGDougSchneider.
