Stratford residents call for cleaning up village

By Casey Krautkramer

Stratford residents are overwhelmingly in support of cleaning up properties and razing dilapidated buildings and homes to make sure the village looks better in the future, according to community survey results reviewed by the village board at its Nov. 12 meeting.

Board member Ken Meyer said he read through all the survey results about what needs the most improvement in the village.

“The commonalities are that properties need to be cleaned up, and I think it’s our responsibility to make it happen,” he said.

The former Discount Liquidators store is an example that village residents gave of a rundown building that should be torn down.

Board members Todd Belter and Dale Heil said the village is already working on figuring out how to make improvements to some items that residents complained about in the survey, like updating park playground equipment and fixing the large cracks on the basketball and tennis courts at Connor Park.

“As I read though the results I noticed there are some misconceptions as to what is actually going on here,” Belter said. “We may need to look at a communication tool like a newsletter for the public, because residents probably don’t know about a lot of things happening in the village like the sidewalk grant that we received to run sidewalks south of town in the future. These are some things that we could do, probably from a communication standpoint, just to get the information out. I think as we get to the next board meeting, we could think of some ideas of what would be good methods of communication without burdening our staff, because we do need to be very cognizant of the staff shortage that we have in the office. Anything additional like a newsletter will entail one of us initially doing it to get that information out.”

2025 budget discussed

A budget hearing was set for 6 p.m. this Thursday, Nov. 21, at Stratford Community

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Hall.

Belter gave a brief summary of the village’s budget at the Nov. 12 regular board meeting.

“A major change from a year ago is that our state transportation aid was cut by about $25,000,” he said. “There is a 3 percent increase in the tax levy itself which somewhat mitigates the cut in our transportation aid.” Belter said a majority of the village’s capital spending was “pretty much shelved” because of the state of the budget.

“The primary changes are wages and benefits,” he said. “Since our income is somewhat flat, the impact on that is really our reserve funds that we set aside for each department each year. Those reserve funds were cut approximately 40 percent from what they were a year ago, which will have an impact down the road which is why we need a loan for capital spending.”

Belter reiterated to trustee Troy Wiesman, the village’s representative on the Stratford Area Fire Department (SAFD) Commission, that it’s important for the fire department to give the village fire department assessments earlier in the year before the village approves its next year’s budget.

“If we receive the fire assessments now, then we are going to be sensitive to any increases,” he said.

Wiesman told Belter that the SAFD Commission wants to make an effort to provide fire assessments to the municipalities it serves early in 2025 instead of later in the year like it has in the past.

Other business

■ The board approved a Resolution authorizing the village to borrow $88,000 from Partners Bank over a three-year period for the completion of capital projects.

■ Board members approved a water quality trading agreement between the village and Maple Ridge Dairy, which is located in the town of Eau Pleine. The village will pay $31,250 for a total of 625 phosphorous credits. Scott Dennee, director of public works, said the village needed more acres to spread out its phosphorous credits.

“It’s either this or a $4 million plant,” he said. “We should be 60 credits over now than what we need so hopefully we are good for a while now. We don’t want to pay for more credits than we need but we also don’t want to revisit this every time we redo this.”

■ The board voted to give each full-time village employee $50 in Stratford Bucks and each part-time employee $25 in Stratford Bucks for holiday gifts.

■ Board member Damon Englebretson told police chief Tom Koontz that customers at his business said they are confused about the village ordinance requiring special permits to hunt in the village. Englebretson owns Damon’s Auto and Damon’s Ammo in Stratford.

Englebretson would like the wording of the ordinance improved so that residents can better understand it. Koontz told Englebretson that the best way is for people to just contact him to find out how to obtain a special permit to hunt in the village.

■ The zoning board of appeals approved a zoning variance request for Brad Slominski to tear down the three-story house he owns at the intersection of Monarch Street and STH 97. Slominski said he will keep the house’s two-car garage intact for his son, Derek, to use. Derek Slominski owns the house to the west of his father’s but his house only has a one-car garage.

Dennee said both Brad and Derek’s properties are zoned B-1 General Commercial but the two properties can’t be combined like Brad Slominski had hoped because they are in different village Tax Incremental Districts (TIDS).