They will be on your doorstep

Back in January, we urged the Marathon Board of Education and Marathon City Village Board to hold a joint meeting to discuss conflicting plans over growth. That never happened and now, with the village ready to push forward with a $4.5 million development north of STH 29, a growth scenario collision looks unavoidable.

With input from citizens in listening sessions, the Marathon school board is committed to running a high quality, but not necessarily bigger school system. In preparation for the last referendum, district citizens and, in turn, the school board rejected building a stand alone middle school to accommodate growth and, instead, agreed to annually enforce open enrollment caps to make the current facilities work. The idea was to maintain a small school feel.

This plan is now threatened by a growth-hungry Marathon City Village Board. Trustees are pursuing not just industrial clients in a business park annex north of 29, but additional housing. The village has approved a 32-unit expansion at Blue Stone Estates, an apartment building located in the village’s business park, and continues to negotiate sale of Veterans Park as a site for 18 townhouses. The business park expansion, however, will add another 40 possible “workforce housing” apartments. The combined impact of these three housing projects could possibly present more students than Marathon Public Schools can handle and, in turn, the school district could be back asking voters for additional taxes to pay for a building referendum.

It is not known, of course, just how many children any of these housing projects will yield. At a Joint Review Board meeting on Monday, village administrator Andy Kurtz minimized the concern, saying that the “tenant mix” at the planned apartments would not have many children. School board member Beth Seubert remained skeptical, however, saying that any projection remained in “gray” obscurity.

We run to the American Planning Association for help. Using U.S. Census data from 2020, that association predicts that the townhouses will generate 10 school age children, the apartments another 20. That comes to a total of 30, enough students to fill a classroom. Is that enough students to force a building referendum? It’s impossible to know. It would all depend on what ages the children were and whether there is room in each individual grade. The school board would not be able to make room for these resident students by cancelling open enrollments. Once accepted into a district, open enrollment students are guaranteed a spot at a Wisconsin public school.

We repeat our request that the Marathon Board of Education and Marathon City Village Board meet to hash all of this out. The boards have radically different visions of the future that soon will come into conflict.

Here’s something the two boards can talk about. According to a revised Tax Incremental District (TID) No. 1 plan, the village of Marathon City will enjoy a $3.4 million surplus by 2035 after it installs roads and utilities north of STH 29. Joint Review Board member Kristi Palmer estimated the village could close out the TID five years early and still come out in the black. The village board should pledge to close out the development early, lower everybody’s taxes and give the school board some room to propose a building referendum, if needed. As we have already reported, extension of Marathon City’s Tax Incremental District (TID) No. 1 for seven years will cost average taxpayers, both in the village and surrounding townships, hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. Tossing a school referendum on top of a late closing TID would pretty much define tax hell.

We note that this kind of clash is what happens when the governor and the legislature think they can micro-manage local economic development. They open the money spigots but also cause problems. Our request, then, of Tony Evers, Jerry Petrowski and John Spiros is that they return to Marathon School District to finish what they started. We expect them on district doorsteps with a flyer asking people to vote “yes” in the next Marathon school building referendum.